Margaret Mead

Today’s WOD is Margaret Mead, one of the world’s most renowned American anthropologists. (born December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) Mead was born in Philadelphia in a household of social scientists with roots in the Midwest. Her father was a professor at the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce and founder of the university’s evening school. However, it was her mother, a sociologist, and her paternal grandmother, a child psychologist, who had the most profound influence on Mead’s young life. 

After graduating from high school in 1918, she went on to her father’s alma mater, DePauw University, but after spending a year there she transferred to Barnard College in Manhattan to experience city life.
Meads major at Barnard was psychology, but she went on to earn a doctorate at Columbia, studying with Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict. For her, anthropology was an urgent calling, a way to bring new understandings of human behavior to bear on the future. 

In 1925 she set out for American Samoa, where she did her first field work, focusing on adolescent girls. Her reports about the attitudes towards sex in South Pacific and Southeast Asian traditional cultures amply informed the 1960s sexual revolution. Mead was a champion of broadened sexual morals within a context of traditional western religious life. 
In 1929 she went, accompanied by her second husband, Reo Fortune, to Manus Island in New Guinea, where she studied the play and imaginations of younger children and the way they were shaped by adult society. When she returned to the United States, she wrote her first book, “Coming of Age in Samoa,” which both challenged the Western way of life and confirmed Franz Boas’ hypothesis that genes are not the cause for cultural differences, rather, it’s the environment in which people grow up. 

She did extensive cross-cultural work on issues including gender roles, environmental justice, education, race relations, child rearing and nutrition. Known as the “observer’s observer,” she successfully bridged the gap between social anthropology and ethnology as we know them today.

Margaret Mead died of cancer on November 16, 1978, hard at work until the day she died. According to Mead’s obituary, “She often gave the impression of being ubiquitous because she was rarely at rest in any one place for very long and because she could not permit a moment to pass unutilized,” and her unpredictability signified she was a “student of adaptation.” After her death, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter.
Throughout her lifetime, Margaret Mead wrote more than 44 books, and more than 1,000 articles that have been translated into a multitude of languages. She gave several television interviews, and held many influential positions, including curator emeritus of the American Museum of Natural History, Earth Day activist, director of research in contemporary culture at Barnard College, and head of the social science department and professor at the liberal arts college at Fordham University. An interesting fact about her as well, as an Anglican Christian, she played a considerable part in the drafting of the 1979 American Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.

Considered “mother to the world,” by many, and “a St. Paul,” by a few, her legacy is epitomized in her own words: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Zurana Horton

Today's awesome woman is Zurana Horton. She died using her body as a living shield to protect children. Not her children; just children who were in danger. But she was poor, black, on public assistance, and had many kids ... so for those sins she was scorned by the media and public more than she was lauded. I call bullshit. That woman was a hero and you are an asshat if you think otherwise.

Zurana Horton was a hero – she just didn't look like onewww.guardian.co.uk
Teresa Wiltz: This blameless woman died saving children from gunfire, yet that was not enough to save her from being judged

Nina Smith

The Awesome Woman for Today is Nina Smith, founder and executive director of Goodweave (http://goodweave.org/). Goodweave encourages handmade rug-weaving shops in South Asia to refrain from using child labor. Goodweave obtains a contractual agreement from shop owners to:
- Adhere to the no-child-labor standard and not employ any person under age 14
- Allow unannounced random inspections by local inspectors
- Endeavor to pay fair wages to adult workers, and
- Pay a licensing fee that helps support GoodWeave’s monitoring, inspections and education programs.

Exported Goodweave-certified rugs then carry the Goodweave label so that you know your rug purchase does not support exploitation of children. Non-Goodweave certified rugs might be made by children who kept locked inside dark shops, are not educated nor fed well, and some of whom are slaves who are not even paid. x

Goodweave also rescues children who have been sold into rug-making slavery, out of desperation, by their parents for amounts as small as $2.50. The rescued children are given refuge in a rehabilitation center where they also receive education, training and love. 

A fair trade advocate and marketing professional for over 15 years, Nina won the 2005 Skoll award for Social Entrepreneurship, acknowledging her work to employ market strategies for social change. Nina was formerly the executive director of The Crafts Center (1995–1999), a nonprofit organization providing marketing and technical assistance to indigenous artisans around the world and publisher of Crafts News. As president of the Fair Trade Federation (FTF) from 1996 to 1998, Nina raised funds for and launched FTF’s first consumer education campaign. Nina’s overseas experience includes a crafts export consultancy to the Tibetan Government-in-Exile in Dharamsala, India from 1994 to 1996, where she oversaw the development of new market-driven product lines, quality control mechanisms, and artisan training programs. Nina’s broad expertise includes nonprofit management, writing and publishing, marketing, public relations and small business development.

The Goodweave program has won The Best in America Seal, that is awarded to less than 1 percent of U.S. charities, and only after rigorous independent review has determined that the highest standards of public accountability, program effectiveness and cost effectiveness are met.

Full disclosure: Nina Smith also happens to be my super awesome first cousin.

Myriam Merlet

Today's Awesome Woman of Distinction is Myriam Merlet. I will be in February's Vagina Monologues, and our focus this year is Haiti. I've been reading about Myriam, and think she more than fits the bill.

In Memoriam: Haitian Feminist Leader and V-Day Activist Myriam Merlet, Eve on Democracy Now talking.www.vday.org
One year after the earthquake that changed Haiti forever, V-Day remembers those who were lost, and honors those who have worked tirelessly since the devastation to take care of their brothers and sisters and hold their communities together. We remember with love our sister and V-Day activist Myriam ...

Debra Winger

Today’s WOD is American Actress Debra Winger. Born Mary Debra Winger in Cleveland, OH on May 16, 1955, she was the daughter of meat packer Robert Winger (who named her after his favorite actress, Debra Paget) and mother Ruth Felder, an office manager. The family relocated to Southern California when Winger was five, where she showed an aptitude for schoolwork that resulted in her graduating from high school at just 15 years old. She also developed a passion for acting, but kept it a secret from her family. Reports were conflicted about her late teenage years, which found her traveling to Israel to spend time on a kibbutz or participate in a youth group that visited one. She also allegedly joined the Israeli army's youth program for a brief stint, but left after only a few months. Upon her return, she found work as a performer at a local amusement park, but was involved in a traumatic car accident that left her both blind and paralyzed for several months. During her recuperation, she made a personal vow that if she regained all of her facilities, she would dedicate her life to acting. After she recovered, she left her studies in criminology at California State University at Northridge and relocated to Los Angeles to try her hand in Hollywood.

Her fiercely committed and emotional performances in such popular and critically regarded films as "Urban Cowboy" (1980) and "An Officer and a Gentleman" (1982) solidified her as a leading performer with few peers. She went on to win an Academy Award for her work in “Terms of Endearment" (1983),

In 1995, Winger began her self-imposed exile from the film industry. Her attention shifted to the birth of her son Babe Ruth Howard, as well as to caring for her ailing parents. For six years, Winger kept her distance from acting - save for a semester as a teaching fellow at Harvard University. Her absence from films was soon cited by critics and fellow actresses alike as the unfair fate awaiting many female performers once they reached the age of 40. She became a symbol of the plight faced by Hollywood actresses of a certain age. This unfair, unspoken Hollywood mindset was chronicled in the documentary, "Searching for Debra Winger" - which was the first public exposure the actress had received in years. Perhaps it was this confrontation of the issue raised by many middle-aged actresses which helped turn the tide, causing Winger to slowly return to acting in the new millennium. Although she would never again reach her early Eighties peak, Winger's later performances in such features as "Rachel Getting Married" (2008) proved age had no bearing on the actress' timeless appeal

While her outstanding talent and body of work would probably be enough for her to be a WOD the reason I chose her today was for her support and involvement in the anti-fracking movement.

Energy companies are eager to drill in northeastern Pennsylvania's portions of the Marcellus Shale, a giant underground rock formation. Opponents say the method, known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, endangers drinking water. Its supporters say the drilling would not harm water supplies.

Debra has property in Pennsylvania and is genuinely concerned about the health aspects of such a dangerous energy extracting method. The consequences will affect the water supply and as a result the food supply for millions of residents in the Delaware River Basin are. The movement Debra is involved in floods lawmakers with phone calls and e-mails telling them to not vote for such energy extracting methods such as fracking. They also threaten to show up and protest the passage of legislation that would allow such methods to proceed

"I used to do (fundraising) for the most powerful people — presidential candidates, the biggest things I could find. But I discovered the grass roots is where it's at. "- Debra Winger
"Why is this even politicized?" "It's a public health issue."- Debra Winger


http://www.artistdirect.com/video/searching-for-debra-winger/66362

http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20111121/NJNEWS10/311210044/Fracking-rally-Trenton

Merrill Markoe

Merrill Markoe (1948-present) is Monday’s Awesome Woman of the Day, not only because her name is so pleasingly alliterative, but also because of her success a funny person who is also female. Which isn’t even necessary to mention, except that it *sigh* still is. (Recall, if you can bear it, that even today, people will ask--in all seriousness!--if women can be truly funny. I swear!)

Markoe is perhaps best known as the creator of the Stupid Pet Tricks and Viewer Mail segments for Late Night With David Letterman, but she also appeared on Michael Moore’s late, great TV Nation, has written several funny books (including It’s My F---ing Birthday) and occasionally does stand-up.

Here’s a link to an article in Jezebel in which Markoe discusses dogs, Late Night and being a female in comedy.

Merrill Markoe On Dave Letterman, Dick Jokes, & The Love Of A Good Dog

jezebel.com

Comedian and writer Merrill Markoe was one of the creators of the David Letterman Show. Now she writes books about talking dogs and makes funny short videos.

Georgia O'Keefe

American painter Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986). Georgia O’Keeffe is regarded as one of the great modernist painters of the 20th century and was a major figure in American art for more than 70 years.

From: Wikipedia: Born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, O'Keeffe first came to the attention of the New York art community in 1916, several decades before women had gained access to art training in America’s colleges and universities, and before any of its women artists were well known or highly celebrated. Within a decade, she had distinguished herself as one of America's most important modern artists, a position she maintained throughout her life. As a result, O’Keeffe not only carved out a significant place for women painters in an area of the American art community that had been exclusive to and is still dominated by men, but also she had become one of America’s most celebrated cultural icons well before her death at age 98 in 1986.

Her abstract imagery of the 1910s and early 1920s is among the most innovative of any work produced in the period by American artists. She revolutionized the tradition of flower painting in the 1920s by making large-format paintings of enlarged blossoms, presenting them close up as if seen through a magnifying lens. And her depictions of New York buildings, most of which date from the same decade, have been recognized as among the most compelling of any paintings of the modern city. Beginning in 1929, when she first began working part of the year in Northern New Mexico—which she made her permanent home in 1949—O’Keeffe depicted subjects specific to that area. Through paintings of its unique landscape configurations, adobe churches, cultural objects, and the bones and rocks she collected from the desert floor, she ultimately laid claim to this area of the American Southwest, which earlier had been celebrated primarily by male artists; the area around where she worked and lived has become known as “O’Keeffe Country."

Barbara Grier

It's many a woman who felt wierd or alone until she read one or more lesbian publications from the Naiad Press, which Barbara Grier and her partner cofounded. We're sorry she died. She is our awesome woman of the day for friday.

Lesbian publishing house founder Grier dies at 78

www.pridesource.com

Barbara Grier, a founder of what once was the world's largest publishing house of literature about gays and lesbians, has died. She was 78.

Marian Wright Edelman

Good morning awesome ones. The awesome woman for November 16, 2011 is Marian Wright Edelman, the founder of the Children's Defense Fund, an advocacy group that works and lobbies on behalf of all U.S. children, but particularly on behalf of poor and disabled children. While some of the organization's work is fairly well-known (e.g., advocating for Head Start, children's healthcare, and child nutritional services), it cements its position on the side of the angels wrt its advocacy for children in delinquency, dependency, and neglect proceedings. The group has been critical in making sure that kids who end up in the system have their educational needs met, in addition to their needs for safety, love, and socialization.

Edelman was born on June 6, 1939. She graduated from Yale Law School in 1963 and is the first woman ever admitted to practice law in Mississippi. She started her legal career working for the NAACP, and within about five years while working for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Poor People's Project, she founded what became CDF in 1973. She has received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for her writings. See more here:

Children's Defense Fund (CDF) : Health Care Coverage for All of America's Children, Ending Child Pov

www.childrensdefense.org

The Children's Defense Fund Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. Full Mission Statement »

Leymah Roberta Gbowee

Today’s woman of the day is Leymah Roberta Gbowee (b. Feb. 1, 1972) peace activist. Famous in Liberia for mobilizing women against war. She, along with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Tawakkul Karman, were awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work."

Leymah Gbowee trained as a trauma counselor during the civil war in Liberia and worked with the ex-child soldiers of Charles Taylor's army. The more she worked with them the more she came to see that they too were were victims. She joined the Woman in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET) and quickly rose to leadership thanks to her leadership and organizing skills. She brought women of the Christian Churches together to issue a series of calls for peace and soon formed a coalition with the women in the Muslim organizations in Monrovia, resulting in the Liberian Mass Action for Peace. 

Ms Gbowee is less well known outside Liberia than President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf but is famous inside the country for mobilizing the women peace protesters ahead of the war's end in 2003. She is credited with organizing a group of Liberian woman in 2002 to put pressure on then-President Charles Taylor to end the country's brutal civil war.

One of the most visible protests was an almost permanent prayer meeting on a football field on the edge of Liberia's capital, Monrovia. They were the mothers, wives and sisters of the men doing the fighting and their victims.The women, dressed in white T-shirts, would sign and pray in the hot sun and through heavy rain.
 
Under Gbowee’s leadership the group managed to force a meeting with Charles Taylor and extract a promise from him to attend peace talks in Ghana. She then led a delegation of Liberian women to Ghana to continue to apply pressure on the warring factions during the peace process. Gbowee is the central character of the award-winning documentaryPray the Devil Back to Hell, which tells the story of the women’s peace movement in Liberia.

After the war Ms Gbowee organized hundreds of female Christian and Muslim activists in nine of Liberia's 15 provinces to help Mrs Sirleaf's successful campaign for the presidency in 2005.

Then in 2006 she co-founded the Women Peace and Security Network Africa, based in Accra, Ghana. It works with women in West African countries with a history of conflict.

In 2007 Gbowee was awarded the Blue Ribbon for Peace (2007) by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and, with the women of Liberia, received the Profiles in Courage Award (2009) from the Kennedy Library Foundation. Gbowee is the executive director of the Women Peace and Security Network Africa, a women’s peace-building organization in Ghana, that will act to build relationships across the West African sub-region in support of women’s capacity to prevent, avert, and end conflicts. 

The Nobel Committee declared that Leymah Gbowee "mobilized and organized women across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the long war in Liberia, and to ensure women's participation in elections. She has since worked to enhance the influence of women in West Africa during and after war".

She holds a master’s degree in conflict transformation from Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.

Queen Soraya Tarzi

Today's Awesome Woman is Soraya Tarzi (1899-1968), who after being born in exile and returning with her family to Afghanistan in the early 20th century, married Prince Amanullah. She became Queen when her husband gained his ascendancy in 1926, but their reign lasted only three years before she found herself living out the rest of her life the way she began, as a woman without a country. But she made a mark during those three short years as the first Afghan queen to promote women's rightful place in public life, and she took significant personal risk in acting as the first public role model of a modern Muslim woman.

During the three years that Soraya was Queen of Afghanistan, she took bold steps to modernize the position of Mulsim women in general, and Afghan women in particular. Her husband was receptive to the egalitarian philosophy Soraya had received from her liberal, intellectual family (the reason they had been exiled to begin with). Soraya set many "firsts" -- the first woman to be the only wife of an Afghan King, the first Afghan Queen to accompany her husband as an equal at public events, the first queen to wear Western style clothing, and the first to openly champion the right of women to education and employment. She was present at Military Parades with the king. During the war of Independence, she visited the tents of wounded soldiers, talked to them, offered them presents and comfort. She accompanied the king even in some rebellious provinces of the country, which was a very dangerous thing to do at that time.

Influenced by Soraya and her father, King Amanullah campaigned  against the veil, against polygamy, and for the education of girls. At a public function, after her husband said that Islam did not require women to hide behind veils, she tore hers off right at the table. Other women at the event followed suit. While her husband was in the process of having the nation's first Constitution drafted and passed, Soraya publicly exhorted women to take their part in the nation's political life and future.

In 1926, Soraya delivered the following message in a speech commemorating the seventh anniversary of independence from England:

It (Independence) belongs to all of us and that is why we celebrate it. Do you think, however, that our nation from the outset needs only men to serve it? Women should also take their part as women did in the early years of our nation and Islam. From their examples we must learn that we must all contribute toward the development of our nation and that this cannot be done without being equipped with knowledge. So we should all attempt to acquire as much knowledge as possible, in order that we may render our services to society in the manner of the women of early Islam.

In 1928 honorary degrees were conferred upon both Amanullah and Soraya by Oxford University, and Soraya spoke to a large audience of students and leaders.  However, the British government had an interest in destabilizing Afghanistan, and distributed in the Afghan countryside photos of Soraya having dinner with men other than her husband, having her hand kissed by a Frenchman, and the like.

The British goal of destabilizing the Afghan monarchy was achieved. When the royal family returned from their trip to Oxford, a violent uprising broke out among religious sects and Amanullah was compelled to abdicate to avoid a civil war. After three short years on the throne, he and Soraya left their country for good. Their first stop was India, where they were applauded by thousands. Indians were still under the colonial thumb of Great Britain, and they gained and lost hope for their own cause as the watched Amanullah gain and then lose power to truly make changes happen in Afghanistan. It is said that Indian women gave Soraya a special ovation, calling out "Soraya! Soraya!" without mentioning "Queen."

Soraya Tarzi lived out the last 40 years of her life in Italy, with her family who were living there in exile once again. She only returned to Afghanistan in a coffin in 1968, where she was given a state funeral and buried next to Amanullah.

Women in the Military

In honor of Veterans' Day in the United States, my Awesome women of the day are women in the military. As an anti-war anti=military woman I realize this is a contradiction. However since we have had the military for most of human existence, I do honor those who serve. Especially women who serve, since in most countries they have always been volunteers, and sacrificed their all to be discriminated and ridiculed in a more than usually male dominated environment.

http://www.4militarywomen.org/History.htm

Women in the military - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org

Women in the military have a history that extends over 4,000 years into the past, throughout a vast number of cultures and nations. Women have played many roles in the military, from ancient warrior women, to the women currently serving in conflicts.

Buffy Sainte-Marie

Today's AWoD is Buffy Sainte-Marie. I was lucky enough to see her at Hillside Festival a couple years ago, and reminded how awesome she is. At 70ish, she's still telling it like it is - with all her strength and beauty. Rock/folk on, Buffy!

Erin Brockovich

Todays WOD is Erin Brockovich the strong, tough, stubborn and some would say sexy champion of those who have no voice. Born June 22, 1960 Erin is an American legal clerk and environmental activist.

She was born Erin Pattee in Lawrence, Kansas, the youngest child of Frank Pattee, an industrial engineer and Betty Jo O'Neal-Pattee, a journalist. Her parents always believed that she could do anything she set her mind to if she learned to focus her amazing energy.

She attended Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, and graduated with an Associate in Applied Arts Degree from Wades Business College in Dallas, Texas. She worked as a management trainee for Kmart in 1981 but quit after a few months and entered some potentially lucrative beauty pageants. After winning Miss Pacific Coast in 1981, she gave up pageant life. Erin, her husband and two children settled in Reno, Nevada. After divorcing, the single mother became a secretary at a brokerage firm where she met and married her second husband. But that marriage was short lived and the now mother of three was solo again.

Up until this point, Erin was the average divorced single mother trying to make a living… until she crossed paths with lawyer, Ed Masry, and changed the course of both their lives.

After being seriously injured in a traffic accident in Reno, Erin moved back to California’s San Fernando Valley, and hired Masry & Vititoe to represent her. They won a small settlement but she still needed work so she got a job at their law firm as a file clerk, it was while organizing papers on a pro bono real estate case that Erin first found medical records that would explode into the largest direct action lawsuit in US history.

Erin’s exhaustive investigation uncovered that Pacific Gas & Electric had been poisoning the small town of Hinkley’s Water for over 30 years. It was because of Erin’s unwavering tenacity that PG & E had been exposed for leaking toxic Chromium 6 into the ground water. This poison affected the health of the population of Hinkley.

Despite the lack of a formal law school education, or any legal education, Erin was instrumental in constructing a case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) of California in 1993. In 1996, as a result of the largest direct action lawsuit of its kind, spear-headed by Erin and Ed Masry, the utility giant was forced to pay out the largest toxic tort injury settlement in US history: $333 million in damages to more than 600 Hinkley residents.

A movie was made about her and what she did. The movie "Erin Brockovich" tells the story of how the people made it through the litigation that followed. What the contamination was (cancer causing hexavalent chromium), how it got into the peoples water supply; who uncovered PG&E's actions; and what the lawsuit produced. The film turned an unknown legal researcher into a 20th century icon by showcasing how her dogged persistence was the impelling force behind the largest medical settlement lawsuit in history. Although to this day the sight is not completely cleaned up and there are many more victims of the contamination. Erin continues to fight for those victims.

Since the release of the film that shares her story and name, she has hosted Challenge America with Erin Brockovich on ABC and Final Justice on Zone Reality. She is the president of Brockovich Research & Consulting, a consulting firm. 

Because of her fighting spirit, Erin has become the champion of countless women and men. She is this generations, “Dear Abby” and in fact receives thousands of “Dear Erin” letters and emails each year from people who are begging for help and support in their own personal struggles. Erin proudly answers every one of them.

As President of Brockovich Research & Consulting, she is currently involved in numerous environmental projects worldwide. She is working with Google to map clusters of illnesses that are reported to her. In the advent of social media popularity, people who have been scattered all over the country and the world have reconnected and sometimes have noticed a common factor of disease. Erin is using this information provided to her by these groups to map out potential clusters of environmental factors contributing to common illnesses.

Erin is one of the most requested speakers on the international lecture circuit and travels the world for personal appearances.
 
Erin Brockovich is a true American hero who’s icon status and “stick-to-it-iveness” only fuels her determination to expose injustice and lend her voice to those who do not have one.

She has requests for her help in ground water contamination complaints in every state of the US, Australia and other international hot spots. She is currently working on cases in California, Texas, Florida, Michigan, Illinois and Missouri.




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

Margaret Sanger

The Awesome Woman of the day is Margaret Sanger.

With the recent laws in Congress and some states (especially Mississippi's granting 'personhood' to any embryo) I thought Margaret Sanger was relevant.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/peopleevents/p_sanger.html

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

American Experience | The Pill | People & Events www.pbs.org
Margaret Sanger devoted her life to legalizing birth control and making it universally available for women. Born in 1879, Sanger came of age during the heyday of the Comstock Act, a federal statute that criminalized contraceptives. Margaret Sanger believed that the only way to change the law was to ...

Chrissy Amphlett

♥ ♥ ♥ Today's Awesome Woman is Chrissy Amphlett (25 October 1959 - ) Lead singer of the Aussie rock band Divinyls, dubbed 'Queen of Australian Rock'. Trained as a singer and dancer, she left home as a teenager and travelled to England, France and Spain where she was imprisoned for three months for singing on the streets.

Chrissy met Mark Entee at a concert at the Sydney Opera House in 1980 and together they formed the band, performing for several years in live gigs in Sydney. The band's members kept changing, except for Chrissy and Mark whose relationship was extremely rocky.

The band released six albums between 1982 and 1996, peaking in 1991 with the success of the single "I Touch Myself" which reached Number 1 in Australia, 10 in the UK and 4 in the US. Divinyls did not release another album for nearly six years, splitting up around the time of Underworld's release in Australia.

Since 1999 Amphlett has been married to US drummer Charley Drayton who played drums on the Divinyls eponymous album and was the drummer in the reformed group. Amphlett lived in New York City with her husband, concentrating on a solo career and
writing her autobiography Pleasure and Pain: My Life.

In 2007 Amphlett revealed she was battling multiple sclerosis and in 2010 that she has breast cancer, gaining treatment in New York. Nonetheless, she performed Divinyl's songs and others with a thirty piece orchestra for the "Australian Rock Symphony" through January 2010.

Boys In Town, Science Fiction, Don't You Go Walkin, Elsie, Pleasure and Pain, Back To the Wall, Temperamental, I'm Jealous and I touch Myself, being some of her biggest hits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aYzQb6cc5E

Divinyls - Pleasure And Pain (1985) www.youtube.com
Music from Australia and New Zealand in the year 1985: Divinyls' promo-video for the hit single 'Pleasure & Pain' (October, 1985) taken from the 1985 album '...

k.d. lang

Happy Birthday to today's Awesome Woman of the Day, k.d. lang, born Kathryn Dawn Lang, November 2, 1951, in Edmonton (or Consort? Found two different accounts), Alberta, Canada. Lang is well-known today as a silken-voiced balladeer, thanks probably to her early "Crying" duet with Roy Orbison http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-EiKPrAOHA but she was known before that in smaller circles as a cowpunk alt-country act, before there really even was such a thing as alt-country.

Which is why I think she's awesome: lots of supertalented people never get the kind of success k.d. lang found (and worked for and deserved), so it was incredibly brave of her to come out as a lesbian AND a vegan while making her living as a mainstream country artist. Twenty years later, I think only one other country artist has come out, and I don't think any of them are out as vegans.

In addition to displaying awesome bravery, Lang is a human rights activist and an animal rights activist. For more biographical details, see, e.g.,
http://www.kdlang.com/bio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K.d._lang
http://www.askmen.com/celebs/women/singer_150/190_kd_lang.html (cheese warning)
http://folkmusic.about.com/od/artistskr/p/kdlang_profile.htm

Bette Midler

Today’s WOD is “The Divine Miss M” the outrageous, beautiful, funny, sometimes-crude, always FABULOUS Bette Midler! My first introduction to this amazing woman was when I was a kid watching an HBO show she did showcasing her vaudeville like performances with my dad. I remember thinking who is this bold, divine, broad wearing the mermaid costume? She was unlike anyone I had ever seen. My dad just loved her and, of course, then so did I. Not only is she incredibly entertaining and an icon for every gay man on the planet, she is smart, strong and a fierce advocate for her beloved New York.

Multi Grammy Award-winning singer/comedienne/author who has also proven herself to be a very capable actress in a string of both dramatic and comedic roles, Bette Midler was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on December 1, 1945. She studied drama at the University of Hawaii and got her musical career started by performing in gay bathhouses with piano accompaniment from Barry Manilow. Her first album was "The Divine Miss M" released in November 1972, followed by the self-titled "Bette Midler" released in November 1973, both of which took off up the music charts, and Bette's popularity swiftly escalated from there. She has starred in highly acclaimed films, such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys. During her more than forty-year career, Midler has been nominated for two Academy Awards, and won four Grammy Awards, four Golden Globes, three Emmy Awards, and a special Tony Award. She has sold over 30 million albums worldwide.

When asked about her parents she responded: “My parents (mother Ruth a seamstress, father Fred a painter) were not encouraging. My father put everybody down. Yeah, it was a real drag but he had his moments. His saving grace was a wicked sense of humour. He was a good provider. They were a team. They were at Pearl Harbour, they knew hardship. My mum was supportive, she had a tinge of showbiz fever and named me and my sisters after Hollywood icons. My dad was like, 'Get a job'. But that gave me something to fight against.”

In 1995, Midler founded the New York Restoration Project (NYRP), a non-profit organization with the goal of revitalizing neglected neighborhood parks in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods of New York City. These include Highbridge Park, Fort Washington Park, and Fort Tryon Park in upper Manhattan and Roberto Clemente State Park and Bridge Park in the Bronx.

In 1999, the city planned to auction 114 community gardens for commercial development. Midler led a coalition of greening organizations to save them. NYRP took ownership of 60 of the most neglected plots. Today, Midler and her organization work with local volunteers and community groups to ensure that these gardens are kept safe, clean and vibrant. In 2003, Midler opened Swindler Cove Park, a new 5-acre (20,000 m2) public park on the Harlem River shore featuring specially designed educational facilities and the Peter Jay Sharp Boathouse, the first community rowing facility to be built on the Harlem River in more than 100 years. The organization offers free in-school and after-school environmental education programming to students from high-poverty Title I schools.

Known for her incomparable humor, over-the-top imagination and captivating charisma, Bette Midler brought it all to Las Vegas in her production designed exclusively for The Colosseum at Caesars Palace...The Showgirl Must Go On. Filled with plenty of girls and gags and an enchanting repertoire of her greatest hits, the Divine Miss M. light up the stage in the energetic, comical and visually stunning spectacle. Bette Midler strode onto the stage back on Feb. 20, 2008 and did 180 shows two years. In her closing concerts, Midler each night has had her dancers collect contributions from the audience to benefit the Haiti earthquake relief operations, and she's personally matched each dollar donated with a dollar of her own. Her first four shows earned more than $100,000. The total of the final concert was more than $200,000.

Last year, the Nevada Ballet Theater presented Midler with the Woman of the Year Award. Midler says she wants a good, long rest after the two-year run, but already there are rumors that she might return with a simpler one-woman solo acoustic show at Steve Wynn's Encore Theater in the Wynn.

Midler will be selling some of her most iconic outfits and achievements from her 40-year career through Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Nov. 12, 2011 with some of the proceeds benefiting her charity, the New York Restoration Project. Even her Mermaid Costumes, if only I could get my hands on one of them! Bette has always been a personal hero of mine. There is nothing about this woman I don’t love.

“I always try to balance the light with the heavy - a few tears of human spirit in with the sequins and the fringes.”- Bette Midler