Cyndi Lauper

Today’s WOD is Cyndi Lauper, born in New York, NY in 1953 is a singer, songwriter, actress, LGBT rights activist and a True 80’s fashion Icon! As a teenager in the 80’s I loved her style, her music, her voice and most of all her attitude. She had a loyal fanbase of anarchists and outcasts for her funky, punk rock image. She was the first female singer to have four top-five singles released from one album. Cyndi herself was known for bucking the norm and giving the middle finger to anyone who tried to keep her down. When she lost her voice, she was told by three different doctors she would never sing again. She went on to make 11 albums and release over 40 singles. Her most popular song, “Girls Just Wanna Fun,” was originally written for a man – but Cyndi thought it was sexist and changed the lyrics, and as a result it became one of the world’s most recognizable feminist anthems.

Although Cyndi has had quite an accomplished career, her activism for the LGBT community has made her a woman truly worthy of praise. She embodies her hit song “True Colors”. An unwavering advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality since the start of her career, Cyndi created the True Colors Tour in 2007. The Tour has brought together artists like Erasure, The B-52s, the Indigo Girls, Deborah Harry and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts for shows that successfully merge great music and public awareness about the issues facing the LGBT community.

To further her role as an activist, Cyndi founded the True Colors Fund in 2008. The non-profit seeks to inspire and engage everyone, particularly the straight community, to become involved in the advancement of LGBT equality. The Fund recently launched the Give a Damn Campaign, an extensive and innovative online public education and awareness initiative.

Once again, Lauper will put her money where her mouth is. Cyndi Lauper is set to open a 30-bed housing facility for homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered youth in Manhattan on September 1st. The True Colors Residence, named after her 1986 hit "True Colors," will be located on West 154th St. near Frederick Douglass Blvd. in Harlem. The residence, the first permanent housing facility of its kind in the city, was conceived by the singer, her manager and the West End Intergenerational Residence, a non-profit focused on providing housing for homeless families and the elderly.

Lauper, a longtime supporter for LGBT rights, was moved to pursue this project because up to 40 percent of homeless youth in the city identify as LGBT. "These young people often face discrimination and at times physical assault in some of the very places they have to go for help," she wrote in a letter seeking donations for the residence. "This is shocking and inexcusable!"

"Our primary goal is to provide a physically and emotionally safe and supportive environment that will empower our young residents to be the self-loving, happy and successful individuals they were meant to be," said Lauper.

In appreciation for her work, Cyndi has been honored by many organizations including the Human Rights Campaign, GLSEN and PFLAG.

Cyndi is also a tireless participant in the struggle to end the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Most recently, Cyndi has joined with Lady Gaga to be the spokespeople for the 2010 MAC Viva Glam Campaign and to educate woman about HIV/AIDS around the world.

She also continues to participate in efforts and events for organizations like AMFAR, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in order to speak out about the need for education and greater resources to fight this disease.

“It’s an honor to always have the genuine affection of the gay community,” Cyndi says. “They have never turned their back on me. I will never turn my back on them. We’ve had a long and enduring love affair.”


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyndi_Lauper

http://www.wegiveadamn.org/

http://cyndilauper.com/bio/

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/cyndi-lauper-opens-shelter-for-homeless-lgbt-youth-20110825

Anne Hutchinson

The Awesome Woman of the Day is Anne Hutchinson (1591-1643), a Puritan living in New England who defied the male church and secular authorities by evolving a belief system according to her own conscience and by leading a Bible discussion group for women. Hutchinson stood by her beliefs, and represented herself bravely at two trials by men who considered her a Jezebel and heretic. In addition to holding and spreading theological beliefs contrary to what men were preaching, Hutchinson and her husband were also deeply opposed to the slavery and brutality being practiced against the Native Americans, for whom they expressed love and appreciation.

Anne also challenged notions that women were intellectually or spiritually inferior, that they ought not think for themselves, and that they were in a childlike relationship to their husbands, governors and religious leaders. Banished from the Massachusetts colony where she had sought religious freedom, and then banished again from the Rhode Island colony where she and like-minded friends had fled, she and all but one of her children were massacred by the very Natives she loved -- who did not know who she was and were in violent rebellion against the cruelty and greed of the white people who lived in the area.

In southern New York, the Hutchinson River is her namesake. It was while driving up the Hutchinson River Parkway with my young daughter years back that I noticed a bronze plaque on a stone bridge that mentioned the origin of the river's name. We looked up Anne Hutchinson when we got home and my daughter wrote a paper about her for an elementary school project. Anne Hutchinson not only served as an early role model for my daughter, her story has ever since inspired me immensely and her belief in the primacy of one's conscience in the search for truth and for a connection to a God sparked my first interest in learning more about Christian philosophy.

"As I understand it, laws, commands, rules and edicts are for those who have not the light which makes plain the pathway." --Anne Hutchinson

Anne Marbury was born in England and lived there until she was 43 years old, almost all her life. In her early years she was influenced by her father, a clergyman who did time in jail for protesting what he considered to be a nepotistic system of selecting church clergy, most of whom he considered to be unqualified. Anne was home-schooled and read from her father's libary. She clearly admired her father's assertiveness and ideals, learning to question church authority, to defend the right to live according to one's conscience and to speak out against corruption. She married William Hutchinson at the age of 21 and took on the role of wife and mother, but remained deeply interested in questions of theology. She and her family began attending the services of the Reformationist Reverend Joseph Cotton, a minister in the new Puritan movement that decried the corruption of the Catholic church.

In the year 1634, the Hutchinsons, and the 15 children Anne had borne, followed Joseph Cotton to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the new Puritan stronghold in the New World. While the notion is commonly held that New England colonies were established according to the principle of religious freedom, the only "freedom" was for colony founders to establish and enforce their own preferred flavor of Christianity. Alternate beliefs were not tolerated. The stifling rules and religious interpretations laid down by colonial governors and their clerical cohorts were imposed on the entire colony. Further, the only acceptable role for women was to serve as child-bearers and submissive subjects of their husbands. Given the stultifying atmosphere vis-à-vis Anne's independent mind, she was destined to be in the role of agitator, dissenter, and branded woman throughout the tumultuous nine years that she lived in America.

When Hutchinson arrived in Massachusetts, there were religious discussion groups for men at which women were not welcome. So she started a discussion group of her own, for women. Rather than repeating the theology as preached and written down by men, she relied on her own deep study of the Bible and the resulting revelations to her own heart and mind, and brought those revelations into the discussion.

Some of her religious tenets were revolutionary for the times, going beyond the reforms the Puritans had built into their new religion. Whereas the leaders of the Massachusetts colony preached a "covenant of works," which laid out very specific actions and behaviors a person must adhere to in order to find salvation, Hutchinson believed in a "covenant of grace," in which humans are saved merely through their faith.  These were beliefs she had learned from Rev. Cotton. But she was even more radical, and believed that faith was not about accepting Christ but rather was about recognizing that Christ had been in one's heart all along. And she stepped even further outside of accepted teachings, in that she believed in a personal closeness to God that did not require interpretation by, and was not a legitimate subject of judgement by, self-appointed church authorities. In her way of seeing it, God revealed himself to individuals without the aid of clergy.

Hutchinson's discussion groups were very popular. Soon men began to attend, too, and as many as 80 people were showing up to study with her. Her fearless independence of mind was a major challenge to the status-quo of the colony's leaders, as was her breaking of the strict Puritan mores that prohibited men and women meeting together, and the fact that so many women were stepping away from their families briefly in order to attend her meetings. This led to her being brought up on charges of heresy and she stood trial twice, while in an advanced pregnancy once again, 50 years before the Puritan misogyny reached its peak with the Salem witch trials.

Hutchinson represented herself at both her civil and church trials, never wavering, never showing fear, and responding to charges with rejoinders that showed shrewd understanding of the law, astute insight into the hypocrisy of the patriarchal control of women's lives, and incredible allegiance to her own truth. The key charge against her in the civil trial was that she had violated the Fifth Commandment, in an argument that cast the "fathers of the colony" as parents. Thus, in a classic use of church doctrine as a means for the powerful to maintain the status quo, she was branded as a heretical dissenter and banished from the colony -- but not before she also had to stand a religious trial in which she was accused of "lewd and lascivious conduct" for holding meetings whose attendees were both men and women. The result of this trial was excommunication.

Anne, William and their children fled to the colony of Rhode Island which at first was a haven for people who had stepped outside of Puritanical rule, yet quickly became yet another example of a powerful man instituting harsh theocratic policies. By this time Anne was led by her experience, logic and meditations on Scripture to a philosophy of individualist anarchism, in which individuals are free to evolve their own morality, ideology, and religious beliefs. (Note that William Gibson, born more than a hundred years later, is credited with being one of the early influences on the school of individualist anarchism, whereas Anne Hutchinson had arrived at a similar set of socio-religious-political beliefs on her own under the most contrary circumstances possible.)

William died in 1642 and Anne decided to move once again, this time to the Dutch-held colony of Eastchester Bay (now in the Bronx). Some of her friends and family moved with her, which attests to her strength as a thought-leader. In 1643 she, her servants, and all but one of the five children who had moved with her were massacred by Mahican Indians who were in rebellion against the local Dutch colonists.

In 1987, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis pardoned Anne Hutchinson, revoking the order of banishment by Governor Winthrop 350 years earlier.


Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Hutchinson
http://www.annehutchinson.com (this site includes partial transcript of her trial, worth a look!)
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Anne_Hutchinson.aspx

Iris Apfel

Today’s Awesome Woman, Iris Apfel (born 29 August 1921) is an American businesswoman, former interior designer, and fashion icon.  She has long been a style icon;  her wardrobe was lavishly documented by the photographer Eric Boman in “Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel,” (Thames & Hudson, 2007), she has been the subject of a string of museum exhibitions and in 2008 was the star of a Coach advertising campaign.  And now at 90 she is on the cusp of pop stardom with her own show on HSN, featuring her exotic accessory designs, and as the subject of a documentary by Albert Maysles. She developed a style based on ingenuity forced by affordability during the Depression and has become the Queen of eccentric dressing.  The New York Times art critic Roberta Smith once wrote  “Before multiculturalism was a word, Mrs. Apfel was wearing it.”

"If you can't be pretty, you have to learn to make yourself attractive. I found that all the pretty girls I went to high school with came to middle age as frumps, because they just got by with their pretty faces, so they never developed anything. They never learned how to be interesting. But if you are bereft of certain things, you have to make up for them in certain ways. Don't you think?" - Iris Apfel

She studied art history at New York University and attended art school at the University of Wisconsin.  In 1948 she married Carl Apfel. Two years later they launched the textile firm Old World Weavers and ran it until they retired in 1992. During this time, Iris Apfel took part in many design restoration projects, including work at the White House for nine presidents: Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton.  

“Women view her as a role model: “A lot of them have told me, ‘Now that I’ve met you, I feel so liberated.’ ” Secret eccentrics, they have learned, Mrs. Apfel maintained, “that when you don’t dress like everybody else, you don’t have to think like everybody else.”

**note - read this link/article!!!  So many great stories about her!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/17/new-year-new-cool-fashion  

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/fashion/iris-apfel-90-stylish-and-on-hsn-up-close.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&ref=fashion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Apfel

Nancy Wake

The Awesome Woman today is Nancy Wake.  She died recently at the age of 98, and live a life which sounds more like a novel than reality.  She was the youngest of six children, born in New Zealand and raised in Australia; her father abandoned the family and her mother raised the children on her own.

Nancy ran away from home at 16 and worked as a nurse, eventually making her way to new York and London.  She married a French nobleman who was a resistance fighter and for a short while lived a life of luxury.  When the Germans invaded, her husband was captured. Prior to that she was active in the resistance and had helped many fighters escape the Nazis.

She became a spy for the resistance and led an 'army' of 7000, in fighting the Germans. She was able to evade capture and sometimes flirt her way to escape as the Gemans could not believe someone as beautiful and feminine was so tough. She was known to have strangled an SS agent with her bare hands, and executed a German spy.  She swore and drank with the best (or worst) of them and was number one on the German's most wanted list with a prize of 7 million francs on her head.  She was an expert shot, and led her force against a force of 22000 Germans, causing 1400 casualties while losing only 100.
AT the end of the war, Nancy learned that her husband had been tortured to death for refusing to give up information about her.

After the war she won honors from France, Britain and the U.S.

She remarried in 1957 and moved back to Australia where she was active in local politics running for office for the Liberal party. 

She eventually moved to Britain and ended her days in the Royal Star and Garter home for disabled vets.
When asked how she would like to be remembered she replied that she hopes to go down in history as the woman who turned down 7,000 sex-starved Frenchmen, and said: "I got away with blue murder and loved every minute of it."

Billie Jean King

Today’s WOD is Billie Jean King (born Billie Jean Moffit) November 22, 1943, in Long Beach, California.

Her father was a Fireman and her mother a homemaker, her younger brother Randy became a major-league pitcher. Billie was an exceptional softball player. Her father and mother did not think playing shortstop was “ladylike” so they encouraged her to take up tennis because it also involved running and hitting a ball. She saved $8.29 in a Mason jar to buy her first tennis racquet, using nail polish to hold its fraying strings together. Billie said, "I knew after my first lesson what I wanted to do with my life," She told her parents that someday she would be the best tennis player in the world…and that she was…Tennis was the game that would change her life and the lives of other women.

History has recorded all King accomplished in furthering the cause of women's struggle for equality in the 1970s. She was instrumental in making it acceptable for American women to exert themselves in pursuits other than childbirth.

Being a child of the 1970’s Billie Jean was my first feminist role model. Having been an athlete as a child, she was a shining light leading the way for equality on and off the playing field. She has long been a champion for social justice and equality. She created new inroads for both genders in and out of sports during her legendary career and she continues to make her mark today. Billie Jean King is a breaker of boundaries; a "shero," to use her word.

In 1967 she was selected as "Outstanding Female Athlete of the World". In 1972 she was named Sports Illustrated "Sportsperson of the Year", the first woman to be so honored; and in 1973, she was dubbed "Female Athlete of the Year".

But, by far, her most memorable accomplishment was when she humiliated Bobby Riggs and single-handedly advanced women’s right by leaps and bounds by doing so. I was young but I clearly remember the rivalry, the challenge Bobby Riggs presented and Billie handing him his ass. The 1973 match was dubbed “The Battle of the Sexes” and it captivated and changed the world. Her victory forever altered the way mothers and fathers viewed their daughters and how daughters viewed themselves. I remember it being a pivital moment in my childhood, I remember how proud I was to be a girl. I was 6yrs old and I will never forget the impact that had on me.

When she retired from professional tennis in 1984, King had logged 39 Grand Slam singles, doubles and mixed doubles titles, including a record 20 at Wimbledon. King was a courageous pioneer in elevating women's sports, successfully fighting for equal prize money for men and women tennis players and helping create a world of opportunity for all female athletes. She was the first woman athlete in any sport to earn more than $100,000 in a season. In 1974, she became the first woman to coach a professional team containing men. King was part of the first women's professional tennis tour and signed a $1 contract to play in it, clearing the way for the birth of women's professional tennis as we know it today.

She founded the Women's Tennis Association and was its first president. She was also the first woman commissioner in the history of professional sports. Billie Jean founded the Women's Sports Foundation, Women's Sports Magazine and co-founded World TeamTennis, a groundbreaking co-ed professional tennis league, and World TeamTennis Recreational League, a nationwide, grassroots co-ed tennis program.

Beyond being one of the greatest female athletes in the world, King has always been a tireless fighter for women's rights. She was a champion of Title IX, legislation that equalized opportunities for women on and off the playing field. A champion for social change and equality, she has continued to help the underserved. She is a director of the Elton John AIDS Foundation (he wrote "Philadelphia Freedom" for her,) on the Board of Trustees of the Women's Sports Foundation and has launched an environmental initiative called GreenSlam to encourage more ecologically responsible practices in the sports industry.

As far as Billie’s personal life, she admits that she was not aware of her homosexuality as a teenager, like most kids. She tried the whole marriage thing but was not happy. There was a big scandal when she was discovered having a relationship with another woman. She was embarrassed and was forced to “come out” as a lesbian, but once she did, she became an advocate for lesbian and gay rights. Although King says coming out publicly as a lesbian was her "longest, hardest journey," she has become an international leader in seeking recognition and equal rights for gays and lesbians.

“Ever since that day when I was 11 years old, and I wasn't allowed in a photo because I wasn't wearing a tennis skirt, I knew that I wanted to change the sport.” --Billie Jean King

Anne Askew

Today's Awesome Woman is Anne Askew. She was a significant player in the English reformation, but a lot of history books barely give her a footnote. This was a strong willed and intelligent woman who fought hard for her beliefs. She memorized the Gospels, so she could share with those who couldn't read and with those who didn't want to risk a Bible in the house (that shit would get you killed for a while under Henry VIII). She left her husband when he didn't support her proselytizing, and lived alone. She refused to name fellow-protestants even under extreme torture. One of the people she might have saved was Katherine Parr, who was married to the King at the time. Anne Askew died determined to remain true to her own values and to protect her friends to the horrible end.

Anne Askew - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org

Anne Askew (née Anne Ayscough, married name Anne Kyme) (1520[1] – 16 July 1546) was an English poet and Protestant who was condemned as a heretic. She is the only woman on record to have been tortured in the Tower of London before being burnt at the stake.

Hege Dalen and Toril Hansen

 

The Awesome Women of the Day are Hege Dalen and her spouse, Toril Hansen, two Norwegian women who risked gunfire to save 40 children from the madman who murdered so many innocents recently at a camp on Utoya Island.

The two women were dining nearby when they heard gunfire and saw people running desperately. They started up their boat's engine and rushed across the water to rescue people from the shore. Even after they noticed bullet holes in the side of their boat they returned again, going in four times in all.

This story did not surface for at least a week after the whole incident, and one has to wonder why. For their selfless and courageous actions, apparently ignored by the mainstream media, they are Very Awesome indeed!

for more info:
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/190990/20110802/norway-massacre-oslo-shooting-utoya-anders-breivik-lesbian-couple-rescue-youth-camp.htm

Cathya

So I’m doing something a little different today - today’s Awesome Woman is me, Cathya. =)  I feel super awesome today, because after over a year of visualizing and gestating on an idea and after a month of labor, today my store is officially open!  I’m super proud & grateful!  So I want to share my journey, where I come from and the many demons I’ve battled both inside & outside to get to this place.  We’ve all had our own journeys that have shaped us and when we can finally own who we are and just say “I’m awesome”, there’s no stopping us.  Some of you have heard little bits & snippets of my story, but I want to put it together.

I was born in 1958, the first child.  I was a honeymoon accident, but my mother always told me that I was a happy accident & that the reason they had my brother was because of me.  I look at early pictures & see a fearless, joyous, fabulous girl.  But then I went to school.  I once read that if you look at your earliest memories, that is the foundation of how you look at the world.  My first memory is in kindergarten.  We were doing the Farmer in the Dell and I ended up as the cheese.  So my first memory is that the cheese stands alone and somewhere in there, I believed I would never fit in.  Throughout my school years, I became a target.  First with freckles, then because of early puberty.  I started developing breasts at 8 and had acne at 9.  Some people have the innate ability to laugh things off.  I’m not one of them.  So I felt alone & isolated.  Along with the the lack of friends, my father is an alcoholic & very, very critical of me.  No matter how well I did in school, he focused on what I didn’t do well.  I once got 5 A’s with one B and he said “Looks like you still need to do some work”.  When I got straight A’s, he criticized how I dressed.  On the other hand, teachers loved me.  So most of my life has been based on performing to earn love & acceptance.   So that set the stage for my life patterns.  I took refuge in reading addictively, art & fashion.

When I graduated high school, a year early - I couldn’t wait to escape, off to college I went.  I wanted to study art, but since everyone told me I couldn’t make a living at art & I believed them, I ended up studying business.  I wanted to fit in, so I joined a sorority & discovered smoking, drinking & sex.  I’ve never done anything halfway, so I was off & running.  I didn’t know who I was, but I knew that I needed to be someone else, so I drifted from persona to persona, trying to find where I fit.  I desperately looked for love & approval.  Eventually, I drifted out of college, with one semester left on my degree.  I got arrested for drunk driving & married the man that rescued me, hoping that settling down would stop my drinking.  I drifted into accounting & tried the business suit, power thing, while doing shots of vodka in the morning to make it through.  I split from my husband, thinking he was the reason for my drinking.

Then at age 26, I woke up & knew I had to stop.  Luckily, Betty Ford had helped destigmatize alcoholism and rehab ads ran nonstop during 2am television.  So off to rehab I went.  I’m one of the lucky ones.  It stuck and I haven’t had a drink since.  I just knew that my life didn’t work & was willing to do anything different.  And if it didn’t work, I was checking out, because I couldn’t make life work anymore & it was too painful to continue.   Getting sober was like being reborn.  And everything in my life since is rooted in sobriety & the things I’ve learned & unlearned since.  The biggest thing was relief & the feeling that I finally fit somewhere.  There were all these people talking about all the things I had felt.  And they shared what they had learned & how they were able to do things different.  They gave me the gift of a spiritual connection, I could find my own higher power.  They gave me the gift of learning my own truths, finding my own path.

So what has happened in the second half of my life as a sober woman of principles & integrity?  At 93 days of sobriety I was fired from my accounting job.  The voice inside, no longer silenced by alcohol, screamed at the top of it’s lungs “Go back to school!  Go become who you were created to be!”  I wasn’t sure what that was, but as I sat with it, I realized that I had always dreamed of being a fashion designer.  So with this new support system, I started pursuing my dream.  I moved back home with my mother - who I absolutely adore.  First I went back & finished my business degree.  And then I applied for & was accepted into Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising.  And I just did what was in front of me.  I didn’t know how I would afford tuition, but I left it up to the Universe that if this was what I was supposed to do, it would all work out. I surrounded myself with cheerleaders, the people that told me I could do it, instead of focusing on the people with all the reasons why I couldn’t, shouldn’t do it.  I was terrified that I wasn’t creative enough, talented enough, good enough.   But I just put one foot in front of the other.  The first day of school, I was in ecstasy.  I couldn’t believe they let me go to school to do this.  Many times I would feel so fearful & anxious that I would go in the bathroom & sob.   But I had learned to just show up & do what was in front of me and I would return to class & continue.  I graduated Summa Cum Laude & was invited into the Advanced Fashion Design program with 12 other students.  Again, I was terrified.  But I showed up & had many, many people that kept me going when I thought I couldn’t.  At our “final”, a very grand fashion show, I won the top award.   It was one of the most amazing nights of my life.

And then I hit the real world.  After several jobs in the garment industry, I was tapped out.  Abusive bosses and sheer craziness had sucked the joy from my life.  Once again I needed to find a new path.  And I began teaching at FIDM.  I loved it!!!!  I began doing freelance design jobs & was really enjoying life.  I started going on camping trips with my mom.  On one of those trips, I discovered Moab.  We drove through & I said “This is cute.  I could live here”.  It shocked the shit out of me & my mom.  I was West Hollywood through & through.  But it wouldn’t leave me alone.  And one more time I said to the Universe “I’ll do the footwork and if this is what you want me to do, it will all work out”.

I moved to Moab in a mini motor home, camped out by the Colorado River & started doing arts & crafts festivals.  I had no idea what  I was doing, but guides were put in my life to teach me and I showed up.  A month later I met my husband at a craft fair.  It was not love at first sight, more like distaste at first sight.  But we ended up camping next to each other on some people’s property & when it was dark & we couldn’t see each other, connected enough to hug.  And when we hugged, we knew we were home.  It wasn’t the lustful, weak at the knees thing, it was warm, fuzzy, safe.  So we sat up all night and talked.  And got right down to basics.  He asked me “What do you believe?” and we talked.  And discovered that just maybe this was it.  Because of our lifestyle, we were forced to take it slow.  Our early dates consisted of meeting up at a show & then camping out together for a week (he had a 10” 1950’s trailer) and then we wouldn’t see each other for a month.  Eventually we started applying for shows together....  After a few years, I was tired of shows and Jim was game for it and we opened a store together.  We had no money, but trusted the Universe and everything came together.  Just before we opened my mom reminded me that I had always dreamed of a store where I could sell clothing I created.  Of course I always thought it would be on Sunset Blvd...

Our store was very successful, but after about six years Jim was tired of it & convinced me to close it and do art festivals again.  This time we knew more & were able to get in better shows.  But after about a year, I started having abdominal pains.  It felt like burning knives plunging & turning.  The doctors decided it was from fibroids.  After a year or so of this, I had a hysterectomy.  I was already through menopause & was tired of the chronic pain.  After I healed from the operation, the pain returned.  I had a colonoscopy & was diagnosed with a spastic colon or IBS.  Doctors suck at having any knowledge about what to do about it, so I read up on it.  Thank the gods for the internet.  I started to become aware of what would trigger the IBS & started noticing emotional things that would trigger it.  And started trying to change old patterns.  It was during this period that I spent a lot of time on Facebook, hiding out from the real world.  I became a Facebook addict!  I met Kristen online & we were joking about Awesome Women Unite - and this group was born.  And as I paid more attention to how we as women are held back by the patriarchy, I also started to notice where I had internalized many dysfunctional behaviors.  I started changing patterns.  And my husband hated it.  I had changed the rules.  We went to counseling.  We read Mars & Venus books together.  And still things sucked with us.  I felt suicidal.  I hated my life & didn’t know what to do.  And then as it had so many times before, the path started making itself clear.  I went to a seminar with Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way.  A friend mentioned ACA, Adult Children of Alcoholics and I started attending.  I looked at what things in the past had brought me joy that I had let slide away.  And it became abundantly clear that doing art festivals, being on the road didn’t work for me.  And as I asked the Universe what I needed to do, the idea of having a store was born.  A store that was all mine.  And I started talking about it, visualizing it, gestating it, letting the concept evolve.  And I came up with the idea of the store as a place to nurture creativity, for me & for others.  A place to nurture women & community.  A place to provide balance in my life.  A place to let my inner little girl play & invite other’s inner children to play with her.  I trusted the Universe to find me a place & make it clear to me.  I had planned to find a space this winter.  But sometimes the Universe has other plans.  And so one night, driving into town after 8 shows in a row, there it was.  Our old store was dark and both Jim & I simultaneously said “Why’s it dark in there”.  So I put one foot in front of the other and within a week had a lease.  I’ve juggled my way through bureaucracy, utilities and the million other things that come with opening a store.  I have no idea how we’ll have the money to do this, but I just have to trust.

Today I am a strong, capable, intelligent, creative, beautiful AWESOME WOMAN!!!!  I am combining the sum of my life’s experiences.  I am combining my right & left brain.  I have a herd of inner children working together as a team.  I am showing up, trusting the Universe & working my ass off.  And today I am FUCKING AWESOME!!!!!

Rachel Beckwith

The AWOD for today didn't live long enough to be technically deemed a woman.  She only lived 9 years and what I am posting came from a Kristoff column last week.  He tells her story much better than I could, and it moved me tremendously:

Rachel’s Last Fund-Raiser

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: August 10, 2011

Perhaps every generation of geezers since Adam and Eve has whined about young people, and today is no different. Isn’t it clear that in contrast to our glorious selves, kids these days are self-absorbed Facebook junkies just a pixel deep?

No, actually that’s wrong at every level. This has been a depressing time to watch today’s “adults,” whose talent for self-absorption and political paralysis makes it difficult to solve big problems. But many young people haven’t yet learned to be cynical. They believe, in a wonderfully earnest way, in creating a better world.

In the midst of this grim summer, my faith in humanity has been restored by the saga of Rachel Beckwith. She could teach my generation a great deal about maturity and unselfishness — even though she’s just 9 years old, or was when she died on July 23.

Read the rest of Kristoff's post

Christine Santiago

The Awesome Woman for Wednesday, August 17, 2011, is Christina Santiago, US Gay Rights Activist. She was only 29 years old, when she died in a stage collapse at the Indiana State Fair on August 13, 2011, She was a manager at Howard Brown Health Center in Chicago, where she had earned recognition as one of Chicago's "30 Under 30" for her work on women's health issues.

She worked to better women's lives

www.indystar.com

Community activist Christina Santiago and her partner, Alisha Marie Brennon, drove from their Chicago home to see Sugarland perform at the Indiana State Fair, a trip a year in the planning.

Autostraddle — LGBT Activist Christina Santiago, 29, Was Here

www.autostraddle.com

Christina Santiago was killed in Indianapolis on Saturday when the stage collapsed. She was a brilliant activist and she was Gaby's best friend.

Chicago Gay Activist Christina Santiago Killed In Indiana State Fair Stage Collapse

www.ontopmag.com

Chicago gay activist Christian Santiago was among the 5 people killed on Saturday as a result of a stage collapse

Julia Child

Happy Birthday to Julia Child ♥ ♥

Today’s WOD is Julia Child a popular TV chef and author. Julia Child was born Julia McWilliams, on August 15, 1912, in Pasadena, California. The eldest of three children, Julia was known by several pet names as a little girl, including "Juke", "Juju" and "Jukies." Her father John McWilliams, Jr., was a Princeton graduate and early investor in California real estate. His wife, Julia Carolyn Weston, was a paper-company heiress whose father served as lieutenant governor of Massachusetts.

The family accumulated significant wealth and, as a result, Child lived a privileged childhood. She was educated at San Francisco's elite Katherine Branson School for Girls, where—at a towering height of 6 feet, 2 inches—she was the tallest student in her class. She was a lively prankster who, as one friend recalled, could be "really, really wild." She was also adventurous and athletic, with particular talent in golf, tennis and small-game hunting.

In 1930, she enrolled at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, with the intention of becoming a writer. "There were some famous women novelists in those days," she said, "and I intended to be one." Although she enjoyed writing short plays and regularly submitted unsolicited manuscripts to the New Yorker, none of her writing was published. Upon graduation she moved to New York, where she worked in the advertising department of the prestigious home furnishings company W&J Sloane. After transferring to the store's Los Angeles branch, however, Child was fired for "gross insubordination."

In 1941, at the onset of World War II, Julia moved to Washington, D.C., where she volunteered as a research assistant for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a newly formed government intelligence agency. In her position, Julia played a key role in the communication of top-secret documents between U.S. government officials and their intelligence officers. She and her colleagues were sent on assignments around the world, holding posts in Washington, D.C., Kumming, China; and Colombo, Sri Lanka. In 1945, while in Sri Lanka, Child began a relationship with fellow OSS employee Paul Child. In September of 1946, following the end of World War II, Julia and Paul returned to America and were married.

In 1948, when Paul was reassigned to the U.S. Information Service at the American Embassy in Paris, the Childs moved to France. While there, Julia developed a penchant for French cuisine and attended the world-famous Cordon Bleu cooking school. Following her six-month training—which included private lessons with master chef Max Bugnard—Julia banded with fellow Cordon Bleu students Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle to form the cooking school L'Ecole de Trois Gourmandes (The School of the Three Gourmands).

With a goal of adapting sophisticated French cuisine for mainstream Americans, the trio collaborated on a two-volume cookbook. The women earned a $750 advance for the work, which they received in three payments. The original publisher rejected the manuscript, however, due to its 734-page length. Another publisher eventually accepted the 3-lb. cookbook, releasing it in September 1961 under the title Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The book was considered groundbreaking, and remained the bestselling cookbook for five straight years after its publication. It has since become a standard guide for the culinary community.

In the 1970s and 1980s, she was the star of numerous television programs, including Julia Child & Company, Julia Child & More Company and Dinner at Julia's; at the same time she also produced what she considered her magnum opus, a book and instructional video series collectively entitled The Way To Cook, which was published in 1989. She starred in four more series in the 1990s that featured guest chefs: Cooking with Master Chefs, In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs, Baking With Julia, and Julia Child & Jacques Pépin Cooking at Home. She collaborated with Jacques Pépin many times for television programs and cookbooks. All of Child's books during this time stemmed from the television series of the same names.

On August 13, 2004, Julia Child died of kidney failure at her assisted-living home in Montecito, two days before her 92nd birthday Child ended her last book My Life in France with "... thinking back on it now reminds that the pleasures of the table, and of life, are infinite - toujours bon appétit!"

"Find something you're passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it."
— Julia Child

Molly Ivins

The Awesome Woman of the Day is Molly Ivins. She died in 2007 and the world of political snark hasn't been the same. She took on the powerful and the elite on behalf of the powerless and down trodden. She named her dog 'Shit'. She got fired for referring to a chicken processing plant as a "gang-pluck". She was a liberal in Texas, y'all. If that doesn't say something about her spine I don't know what will. I loved Molly Ivins, and I recommend her books to anyone who 1) wants to laugh til they cry or 2) read about political shenanigans til they cry or 3) both.

Molly Ivins, Columnist, Dies at 62 - New York Times

www.nytimes.com

The liberal writer derided those who she thought acted too big for their britches.

Lillian Moller Gilbreth

Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878-1972) is today’s Awesome Woman. She could have been up here simply for mothering alone. She and her husband, efficiency expert Frank Gilbreth, Sr., had twelve children, and ran their family as sort of a test laboratory for their principles of “motion study.” Motion study was the practice of studying a particular task (anything from tooth brushing to a complex factory assembly line), breaking it down into its components, then figuring out how to save time and motions during the task. The Gilbreth children had their lives geared for efficiency--from their 2 minute baths (start with the soap up one side, down with the other) to family meetings to determine matters from who should paint the fence to whether or not buying a dog would be a good idea. (I urge you to rush to your library and pick up “Cheaper by the Dozen,” a memoir of growing up by Gilbreth kids Frank Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. Go on. I’ll wait.*)

Frank Gilbreth Sr., a boisterous, domineering figure, was the public face of the Gilbreth motion study consulting business, but Lillian was involved as he was. After his death, she wanted to take over their practice where they left off, but found that companies wouldn’t hire a women for such high-level work. She finally found a some jobs consulting on accounts deemed more womanly, and helped designed an “efficiency kitchen.” She developed a triangular set up of work stations anchored by a refrigerator, oven and sink that’s still used today. In 1926, she became the first woman member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

According to “Engineer Girl” (http://www.engineergirl.or​g/?id=11843):

She was the first person to integrate psychology into concepts of industrial management. During the Great Depression, President Hoover asked her to join the Emergency Committee for Unemployment. While on this committee, she created a successful nationwide program, "Share the Work," that created many new jobs. During World War II, Lillian worked has a consultant for the government. She oversaw the conversion of factories to military bases and war plants. Lillian is credited with many inventions. These inventions include the foot-pedal trash can and refrigerator door shelves.

Notes the “McHenry County Turning Point” (http://www.mchenrycountytu​rningpoint.org/blog/?p=328​9):

Her work transformed factories and offices and led to the understanding that better conditions for workers can lead to more efficient profitable factories. She also transformed the American home, making life a little easier for anyone who had to pack a lunch, dust a windowsill or peel a potato.

And through it all, she was also a damn good mother. As Frank Jr. and Ernestine remarked: “Dad said he only had 12 children; mother had 12 only children."

* The 1940s film versions of the family’s story, “Cheaper by the Dozen” and “Belles on their Toes,” are also good--Myrna Loy as Lillian!-- but should not be confused with the later Steve Martin “Cheaper by the Dozen” films which are rubbish.

Suraya Pakzad

The AWESOME woman of the day is SURAYA PAKZAD (born ca. 1970), an Afghan woman deeply committed to women's rights to education, safety, and opportunity. Pakzad founded the "Voice of women Organization" (VWO) NGO in 1998 and began to teach girls how to read in groups across Afghanistan. Since 2001, when Afghani women to some extent could operate to pursue their aspirations in a rigid society, VWO began to function openly. Her work to protect women and girls at risk as well as advocacy for women’s right puts her in constant danger in a traditional society in Afghanistan.

In 2009, when she was one  of the first four women to receive a "Power and Peace Award" (one of several high honors she has earned), the Washington Post explained the kind of violence Pakzad witnessed in her youth, that led her to follow her mission of working for women:

Suraya Pakzad was 12 when she saw a gunman kill the headmistress of her Afghan school because the woman taught girls and refused to wear a headscarf. A few weeks later, a rocket smashed into the school and killed a student sitting near her, another warning for girls not to learn.

In addition to her open efforts towards educating women and teaching them skills and trades (she is the only woman in Afghanistan who has ever trained other women to run a restaurant, for example), she also runs a system of secret shelters for child brides and other victims of Taliban-style abuse of women, providing housing and medical, legal and job-training services.

Pakzad was named in 2009 by Time magazine as one of the "Time 100" most influential people in the world. A mother of six children, she lives with unimaginable daily risk. She has been the victim of many death threats and conservative influences within the government have worked against her good efforts. Funding is also a constant challenge. 

The write-up of Pakzad in Time 100 noted:

It is difficult to name a more committed advocate for women's rights in Afghanistan.... Pakzad knows that any future success for Afghanistan depends greatly on the full, unimpeded participation of its women as contributing, productive members of society. In 1926, then Queen Soraya said famously, "Do not think, however, that our nation needs only men to serve it. Women should also take their part, as women did in the early years of Islam. The valuable services rendered by women are recounted throughout history. And from their examples, we learn that we must all contribute toward a development of our nation." This is what Pakzad believes. This is what she fights for. And it is — and this, however unpleasant, must be said — what she may die for.

Mary Cassatt

Today's AWOD is Mary Cassatt. She is one of my favorite  artists and as a woman had to overcome many obstacles, mostly because of her gender.   I am including the following as it is more inclusive than what I wrote! :) http://www.biography.com/impressionists/cassatt-bio.jsp

Dr. Ruth Westheimer

Today’s WOD is Dr. Ruth Westheimer. (June 4, 1928- ). She was born as Karola rith Siegel in Frankfurt, Germany. Ruth grew up in the German Depression and Hitler’s Nazi Germany, on Nov 16 1938 her father was taken by German SS Soldiers. Her family sent her out of the country for her safety and she never saw her family again. She was sent to Heiden, Switzerland and she lived a hard life as a servant. The letters she exchanged with her parents suddenly stopped in September of 1941. Later Ruth learned that her parents had been taken to the Lodz Ghetto and had most likely been killed at Auschwitz. 

At 17 she had no family and no home, she moved to Palestine shortly before it was attacked by Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq. So she joined the Haganah and was trained as a sniper and she dedicated herself to the building of a Jewish Homeland. On her twentieth birthday she had just finished up guard duty when an Arab shell exploded at her feet, seriously injuring her. Her recovery was slow, but she survived to walk again. She married and divorced a Jewish solder. She moved to France studied Psychology, met her new boyfriend and they moved to New York. She got married again, had a daughter and got divorced again. She raised her daughter alone and received her master’s degree in sociology in 1959. She met her third husband, became an American citizen and had her second child Joel in 1963. She then worked on her Doctoral degree.

In the late 60’s she began working at Planned Parenthood and became so comfortable with the frank discussions regarding sex that she decided to pursue a career in sex education. She received a doctorate in Education from Columbia Teachers College in 1970 and began teaching that same year at Lehman College in the Bronx. In September 1980 she was convinced to fill 15 minutes of air time in a NY radio station and that is where “Dr. Ruth” was born. Month after month her audiences grew. Piles of fan mail arrived. The show expanded. Ruth started answering questions from letters, and after a year she started to take live phone calls on the air. Before long over seventy-eight stations across the country were broadcasting Dr. Ruth's radio show. With the incredible exposure Ruth received came newspaper columns, books, a movie cameo, home videos, a board game, and numerous appearances on television talk shows. 

She has continued to take her frank discussions of sex everywhere she goes, including the Internet. In November of 1996 she launched a Web site. She continues to maintain a private practice in New York, and her awe-inspiring energy continues to astound each person whose life she touches. Dr. Ruth has devoted her entire career to making people feel good about themselves and enjoy life. And perhaps no one had a better time than Dr. Ruth Westheimer herself. The 4'7" grandmother has through her career changed the America's ideas of sexual education and literacy and for that we are grateful.

Jamie Lee Curtis

Jamie Lee Curtis is today’s Awesome Woman. Why Curtis? I mean, she’s a flippin’ movie star. But here’s why she’s up here: with famous parents (Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh) and a famous husband (Christopher Guest) and a seemingly easily won career in as an actress and children’s book writer, she could have been good little Hollywood royalty and just played it safe. Instead she did something that by celebrity standards was pretty fucking brave--she posed for a national magazine without airbrushing, flattering lighting or make-up, and in her underwear. And not cute underwear--functional regular old underwear. Said Curtis in More magazine in 2002:

There’s a reality to the way I look without my clothes on. I don’t have great thighs. I have very big breasts and a soft, fatty little tummy. And I’ve got back fat. People assume that I’m walking around in little spaghetti-strap dresses. It’s insidious—Glam Jamie, the Perfect Jamie, the great figure, blah, blah, blah. And I don’t want the unsuspecting forty-year-old women of the world to think that I’ve got it going on. It’s such a fraud. And I’m the one perpetuating it.

At 52, Curtis is feeling free. She’s let herself go gray and is doing Activia commericials. (Well, maybe the Activia commercials are a bit too feelin’ free, but I’ll cut her a little slack.) Curtis, a recovering alcoholic and painkiller addict is now living a clean life on her own terms, and challenging accepted “rules” on feminine beauty. And today, that’s good enough for me.

Kathryn Bolkovac

The Awesome Woman of the Day is KATHRYN BOLKOVAC, a law enforcement professional who blew the whistle on DynCorp, a contractor paid by the U.S. Military to assist in the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Bosnia in the late 1990s, for failing to take action against their own task-force trainees who were patronizing Bosnian establishments that trafficked in very young sex slaves. (A movie called The Whistleblower, based on this true story, was released on Friday, August 5.)

Bolkovac was working as a police officer in her native Nebraska when she saw a recruiting poster for the mission. A mother of three, with two of her children in college, she signed up to be one of 2,000 police officers from 45 countries to work as peacekeepers. During her training session in the States, she learned that at least one man in her group was aware of the use of very young girls for sex in Bosnia, a fact that was borne out once she was deployed. Bolkovac discovered restaurants and night clubs in Bosnia that were fronts for sex-trafficking operations that rented out girls aged 12-15 to international clientele, including her fellow U.N. peacekeepers. The Bosnian police were no help; they apparently were being paid to ignore the awful situation.

The treatment of these young girls was truly atrocious. Bolkovac uncovered evidence of girls who, when they refused to have sex, were beaten and raped in bars by their pimps while peacekeepers stood and watched. She discovered that one UN policeman who was supposed to be investigating the sex trade paid $700 to a bar owner for an underage girl he kept captive in his apartment.

[Madeleine Rees, the head of the UN Human Rights Commission office in Sarajevo, believes trafficking in little girls started with the arrival of the international peacekeepers in 1992.]

Bolkovac reported her findings to her DynCorp, which at the time had a $15 million contract to recruit and train police officers for the Bosnian operation, and she was immediately demoted. Six months later she was fired, and was warned by fellow workers that her life was in danger. After a two-year lawsuit she waged against DynCorp, in 2002,  an employment tribunal ruled that Bolkovac was unfairly dismissed by DynCorp.

In 2002, Salon did a two-part investigation into the participation of DynCorp employees in the Bosnian sex-slave trade, and determined that t least 13 DynCorp employees have been sent home from Bosnia -- and at least seven of them fired -- for purchasing women or participating in other prostitution-related activities. But despite large amounts of evidence in some cases, none of the DynCorp employees sent home have faced criminal prosecution.


In January, a book co-authored by Bolkovac about her experience, The Whistleblower: Sex Trafficking, Military Contractors, and One Woman's Fight for Justice, was published

Lucille Ball

Born 100 years ago today, the Awesome Woman for today, Saturday, August 6, 2011, is the legendary Lucille Ball (8/6/1911 - 4/26/1989). One of the most popular and influential stars in America during her lifetime, with one of Hollywood's longest careers, Ball began acting in the 1930s, becoming both a radio actress and B-movie star in the 1940s, and then a television star during the 1950s. Lucille Ball is best remembered for her television role as Lucy Ricardo, the zany wife of Ricky Ricardo, on the “I Love Lucy Show.”

Lucille Ball Biography

www.biography.com

A brief look at the life and work of comedienne Lucille Ball, best remembered for her classic television comedy series .

Ann Richards

Ann Richards was the second woman to be governor of Texas, the first in her own right.
Governor does not even begin to describe this motorcycle-driving grandma.

She was a quick-witted warm-hearted Texan who symbolized the best of the Lone Star state.

She married her high school sweetheart and had four children. She taught school early in her career and was active in local politics, education being one of her main causes. At the urging of her husband she ran for higher office and won the election as the first female commissioner of Travis County.  The win was a bitter one, as it led to the breakup of her marriage and forced her to confront her alcoholism.  She entered rehab and came out sober.  Then continued to be an advocate for addiction and recovery. To quote Molly Ivins, “To see the governor of Texas sitting in a circle of convicted criminals saying, ‘My name is Ann and I’m an alcoholic’ is to learn a great deal about recovery.”

She then ran for and was elected state treasurer in 1982, and became a national figure when she gave the keynote address at the democratic Convention in 1988. Ann famously said about George H. W. Bush, “Poor George, he was born with a silver foot in his mouth.” And she is credited with saying that “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did.  She just did it backwards and in high heels.”

She was elected Governor of Texas in 1990, and set a liberal agenda, hiring the first women and minorities across state offices, including the Texas Rangers. Molly Ivins described her thusly, “She was a great politician who was remarkably good at governing.”  She was a hard working governor who was gracious, charming and generous.  She opened the governor’s office to groups of all ages and stripes.  Education and school finance were her key issues.   When the gun proponents said that women might feel safer if they could carry guns in their purses, her reply was, “Well, I’m not sexist, but there is not a woman in this state who could find a gun in her handbag, much less a lipstick.”

After she lost to George W Bush she worked as an advisor and campaigner for many Democratic candidates.  Richards also served as a trustee at Brandeis University.

In her 2006, the Austin Independent School District announced the opening of the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders, a college prep school for girls in grades 6-12.

Her many awards include, the Texas NAACP Presidential Award for Outstanding Contributions to Civil rights, The National Wildlife Federation Conservation Achievement Award, and the Texas Women’s hall of Fame honoree for Public Service.
After being diagnosed with Osteoporosis, she changed her lifestyle and diet, and wrote a book about it. In 2006 she  announced that she had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer, and died in September of that year.