Smita Panvalkar

Smita Panvalkar is worthy of an Awesome Woman of the Day! Standing up to Trump and capitalism, money cannot buy her!

Woman who won't let Donald trump Mumbai, News - Cover Story - Mumbai Mirror

www.mumbaimirror.com

Agritty 54-year-old-woman stands between Donald Trump, easily the world's most glamorous real estate developer, and his first project in India. Trump Tower

AWU post and comments are at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_343338393054&view=permalink&id=10150300095458055

Isabella of France

Isabella of France (sometimes known as 'She wolf) was born around 1295 and died 1358. Isabella was betrothed to Edward II of England as an infant. She was brought to England at about twelve and married then, though the marriage probably was not consummated for 2 or 3 years. In a time when most women, even royalty were not educated, she was literate and intelligent. She also possessed formidable diplomatic skills and was known as a great beauty.

Edward was not interested in governing and eventually turned that over to his advisor and almost certainly, lover, Piers Gaveston. Isabella tolerated this and eventually gave birth to four children. Gaveston was eventually put to death by the barons and Edward took another lover/advisor Hugh leDespenser. Despenser’s rule was cruel and avaricious. England’s treasury was plundered and anyone who dared complain was put to death and their property confiscated.

Despenser also worked to take away any power the Queen possessed. At one time the King listened to her and followed her advice. But once under the spell of Despenser, put Isabella aside. Initially, the Edward and Despenser began taking away her properties and titles. They isolated her and even took her children away from her. Unlike some royalty, she was reported to be a devoted loving mother, so this was an especially cruel blow. They took all of her trusted advisors and left her all but imprisoned.

At this time, relations between England and France reached one of their many disputes and war was threatened. Isabella’s brother Charles was King of France and they had a close relationship. Edward was convinced(against Despenser’s wishes) to send Isabella to France without their children to broker a peace. At the last minute she was able to take their son Edward III with her. Once in France she met with her brother and war was averted. She extended her stay and met up with Roger Mortimer, who became her lover.

They soon began plotting an overthrow of King Edward. England was suffering under his rule and otherwise this would not have been possible. She and Mortimer raised funds and an army with the cooperation of France’s king. They successfully invaded England and deposed the king, and put Despenser to death. Her son Edward III was crowned and is remembered as one of England’s best monarchs.

She was responsible for the loss of lives, and like most powerful people was far from perfect - her revenge on her husband was cruel (he died in prison by unknown means). However in a time when women were chattel, by any standard she accomplished an amazing feat. It was the only time England was successfully invaded since the Norman Invasion in 1066, and hasn’t happened since. She was a good and loving mother, and by most reports a good queen.

AWU post and comments at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_343338393054&view=permalink&id=10150299580978055

Valerie Tripp

Today’s WOD is Valerie Tripp, Born 1951, in Mount Kisco, NY. I had the pleasure to meet Ms. Tripp and her husband at the Constitution Center with my girls and my friend’s daughters. The Constitution Center in Philadelphia had an exhibit of American Girl Dolls. If you have little girls you might have heard of the American Girl Dolls, Valerie Tripp is the genius behind Molly (my Favorite), Samantha, Felicity, Josephina and Kit.

"American Girl" books focus on young women growing up during different periods in American history. Among the girls Tripp has written about are Molly, a nine year old whose father serves in England during World War II; Samantha, an orphan who lives with her aunt and uncle in turn-of-the-twentieth-century New York City; Felicity, who lives in Williamsburg, Virginia, during the outbreak of the American Revolution; Josephina, a young Hispanic girl living in early-nineteenth-century New Mexico; and Kit, who lives in Cincinnati during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

My daughters and my friends daughters went to a lecture by Tripp at the Constitution Center where she told the girls how she got into writing, how difficult it was to deal with the rejection and how she never gave up. She explained to them how the writing and editing process worked and how her work was often changed and cut to fit the publisher’s needs. She talked about the extensive research she does for each girl that she takes on because she wants her stories to be as historically accurate as possible. She was such a delight and she obviously loved all the little girls, she stayed ALL DAY and took their questions and we ran into her several times throughout the day (our girls considered her a bit of a Rock Star). She was so very encouraging and by the end of the day she knew all of our girls names and what each one of them wanted to do with their lives.

Valerie’s work has opened up a world to young girls all over the country, all of the books feature a young girl who, for some reason, has to overcome circumstances beyond their control and each girl is portrayed as strong and capable. They are amazing role models for little girls, it empowers them knowing that other girls their age have overcome as bad if not worse circumstances then they find themselves in. In addition, as a special bonus, these girls learn American History through the story’s of these characters. It is a win win!! Ms. Tripp's books have won many awards, but she is most proud of the Children's Choice awards. Ms. Tripp was honored as a March of Dimes Mother of the Year for voluntary work in the local elementary schools and public libraries of Montgomery County, MD. She lives in Silver Spring with her husband who is a professor of American history, their daughter, and their golden retriever, Bingley.

AWU post and comments at http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2222886937692&set=o.343338393054&type=1

Flor Molina

The Awesome Woman of the Day is Flor Molina, a survivor of forced labor in the garment industry in Los Angeles, California. She was forced to work, was told she owed her trafficker thousands of dollars, and was even forced to live within the garment factory and was not allowed to go out without escort. Sadly, this is all typical in the world of human trafficking. What is unusual about Molina is that within 40 days of her arrival at the Los Angeles factory in 2001 she found a way to escape, immediately placed a phone call to a (non-enslaved) co-worker, and blew the whistle in spite of threats that her three children and mother back home would be harmed. Her phone call initiated a process that ended with the conviction of the human trafficker who had brought her to the United States and kept her enslaved.

Molina's coworker picked her up, took her to a restaurant, and contacted the FBI who were already investigating the trafficker. The FBI connected her to the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST), who helped her find shelter and get back on her feet. She then became a member of the CAST Survivor Advisory Caucus, one of the groups that worked hard to pass a bill in California (that will go into effect in 2012) that requires manufacturers and retailers in the state to disclose their efforts at making sure their supply chains are free of slavery.

Molina offered the final testimony in the California legislature while Governor Schwarzenegger's pen was poised over the bill:

I and other members of the caucus speak up against slavery not because we are not afraid but because we want to make sure that what happened to us doesn't happen to anyone else.

The CAST Survivor Advisory Caucus fought hard for this bill to pass. We testified at hearings, we wrote letters and got signatures for our petition. Our voices were heard and action was taken, action that will, hopefully, protect others from falling prey to traffickers like we once did. I am proud to stand here, not as a victim of slavery but as a powerful agent of change.

Please, Governor Schwarzenegger, will you please sign the legislation?

There was applause, and the Governor signed.

http://www.szone.us/f76/governor-highlights-legislation-combat-human-trafficking-51387/

http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/05/i-was-enslaved-for-40-days/

AWU post and comments at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_343338393054&view=permalink&id=10150288318793055

Lynn Hershman

Can you name three women artists? Surprisingly, most people on the street can’t. And this is the vox populi style in which our story begins. This past weekend, I saw a very interesting & important film at the IFC in NYC I wanted to share with you and encourage everyone to view (if you can uncover it).
Through intimate interviews, art, and rarely seen archival film and video footage, !Women Art Revolution reveals how the Feminist Art Movement fused free speech and politics into an art that radically transformed the art and culture of our times.

For over forty years, Director Lynn Hershman Leeson has collected hundreds of hours of interviews with visionary artists, historians, curators and critics who shaped the beliefs and values of the Feminist Art Movement and reveal previously undocumented strategies used to politicize female artists and integrate women into art structures. !Women Art Revolution elaborates the relationship of the Feminist Art Movement to the 1960s anti-war and civil rights movements and explains how historical events, such as the all-male protest exhibition against the invasion of Cambodia, sparked the first of many feminist actions against major cultural institutions.

The film details major developments in women’s art of the 1970s, including the first feminist art education programs, political organizations and protests, alternative art spaces such as the A.I.R. Gallery and Franklin Furnace in New York and the Los Angeles Women’s Building, publications such as Chrysalis and Heresies, and landmark exhibitions, performances, and installations of public art that changed the entire direction of art. To my delight she included Yoko Ono’s astonishing 'Cut Piece'.

Shown are how new ways of thinking about the complexities of gender, race, class, and sexuality evolved. Some of the highlights of the screening are her interviews with Judy Chicago discussing the controversy over 'The Dinner Party' (Congressman called it obscene!) and her investigation into the shady disappearance of Cuba's Ana Mendiata. In the late 80s, The Guerrilla Girls emerged as the conscience of the art world and held academic institutions, galleries, and museums accountable for discrimination practices. Over time, the tenacity and courage of these pioneering women artists resulted in what many historians now feel is the most significant art movement of the late 20th century. The disturbing question the filmmaker leaves us with is whether the force of women’s art truly transformed the production, circulation, and reception of art or just shook it up for a time?

The documentary’s creator Lynn Hershman Leeson (b. in 1941 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an award-winning American artist, sculptor and filmmaker. She was Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Davis, and an A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. She is Chair of the Film Department at the San Francisco Art Institute, and has received wide recognition for a body of work combining art with social commentary, particularly regarding the relationship between humans and technology. Leeson's own work has as its themes: identity in a time of consumerism, privacy in an era of surveillance, interfacing of humans and machines, and the relationship between real and virtual worlds. Her work grew out of an installation art and performance tradition. She explored interactivity with her video work. The image accompanying this bio shows one of my favorite examples.

Leeson reluctantly documents her own achievements in her latest film. One of the most unusual projects she highlights shows that In the 1970s, specifically from 1973 to 1978, Roberta Breitmore was her major creation. Roberta Breitmore is a persona Hershman adopted over several years, enacting the transformation with wigs, make-up and clothing. With the addition of a little bureaucratic validation (driver's license, credit cards, address and bank account, psychological profile, etc.), the fictional character became practically real, spilling over from fiction into reality. Today nothing remains to indicate her existence apart from a few artifacts: diary, letters, photographs and diverse documents. The work itself consisted essentially of Roberta's experiences. One of these was her very real encounter in a park with a man answering a classified ad she had placed in order to find a roommate. Roberta found herself surrounded by three men who were linked with a prostitution ring; she escaped their clutches by fleeing into a public toilet and removing her disguise. Roberta Breitmore let Hershman highlight several feminist problematics, such as the way the social and cultural environment constructs women's identities, and how women are victims of the structures and conditioning imposed on them.

In recent years, feminist artists have gained much more visibility. There’s a Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, The Feminist Art Project at Rutgers University, and a recent exhibition and permanent collection of feminist artists at SUNY’s Neuberger Museum; all are within a 100 miles of my home. So thankfully, we no longer have to ask the question, “Why have there been no great women artists?” as Linda Nochlin did in 1971. And yet, so many still do. Do you think there is still sexism in the art world?

For more archival materials see: http://lib.stanford.edu/women-art-revolution.

AWU post and comments at http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2049642714478&set=o.343338393054&type=1

Ng Mui

♥ ♥ ♥ Today's Awesome Woman is Ng Mui (birthdate unknown c1600s) was said to have been a Buddhist Nun, that was a supporter of the Ming Royal Family. She was one of the legendary Shaolin (Young Forest) Temple’s fabled “Five Ancestors”, who escaped the Fujian temple’s burning and destruction. She is the founder of the martial arts Wǔ Méi Pài (Ng Mui style), Wing Chun Kuen, Dragon style, White Crane, and Five-Pattern Hung Kuen. There are differing accounts of her actual biography, but all tell of her awesomeness.

According to Wing Chun:
Ng Mui was Abbess at the Henan Shaolin Monastery and managed to survive its destruction by Qing forces during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor (1662–1722). She fled to the White Crane Temple where she met a girl of fifteen named Yim Wing-Chun whom a bandit was trying to force into marriage. Ng Mui taught Wing-Chun how to defend herself by distilling Shaolin martial art knowledge into a system that Wing-Chun could learn quickly, and use without developing great strength.

According to Wǔ Méi Pài:
She was the daughter of a general in the Ming imperial court where she fully developed her practical style in the Forbidden City. To develop balance and leg strength she trained on upturned logs, in a pattern she invented. She was traveling when her parents were killed in the Manchu capture of the Ming capital. She took refuge in the White Crane Temple and became an anti-Qing rebel, teaching her style only within the Temple. The style uses instantaneous counters, and slower movements from Bodhidharma and Qigong.

http://www.blackdragon.itgo.com/Masters/Ng_Mui.htm

Ng Mui Si Tai

www.blackdragon.itgo.com

Ng Mui Si Tai (Wumei Shitai or Nun, Five Plums), was most often said to have been from the legendary Shaolin Temple and to have been one of the fabled five ancestors who escaped the temple’s destruction.

AWU post and comments at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_343338393054&view=permalink&id=10150278440503055

Joy Adamson

She was born in Austria and emigrated to Africa when her first husband, who was Jewish, decided before WWII that Austria was becoming unsafe. Unfortunately for her first husband, she met her second husband on the trip. Ms. Adamson was a successful botanical painter before meeting an marrying her third and final husband, George, a game warden, but she is most famous for rehabilitating big cats and releasing them into the wild.

Born Free documents the Adamsons' experience with Elsa, a young lioness they raised after George was forced to shoot her mother. Joy and George were able to teach Elsa to hunt and care for herself and release her, and Elsa found a mate and had cubs. However, Elsa became ill and died while the cubs were still small, so Joy raised them and released them, too (they were never seen again). Born Free, Living Free, and Forever Free - and the movies that were made from them - were hugely popular and drew enormous and welcome attention to environmentalism, conservationism, and anti-extinction efforts.

Ms. Adamson was murdered on January 3, 1980 while observing animals in the wild. Although her death was initially reported as a cat mauling, her wounds were later determined to have been inflicted by a sword-like weapon/weapons. Even that finding is not consistent with the claims of the person who confessed to killing her - he says he shot her - so who knows. Her husband, George, was murdered by poachers in 1989.

The Awesome Woman for Wednesday, June 22, 2011, is Friedrike "Joy" Adamson, January 20, 1910 to January 3, 1980, the most well-known naturalist/conservationist of my lifetime (so far).

Links:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2004/feb/08/kenya.conservation

http://www.notablebiographies.com/A-An/Adamson-Joy.html

AWU post and comments at http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2104486660613&set=o.343338393054&type=1

Mother Jones

Today’s WOD is Mary Harris "Mother" Jones (August 1, 1837 – November 30, 1930), born in Cork, Ireland. She was a dressmaker until her Husband, all four children died of Yellow fever, and her workshop was destroyed by fire in 1871. She set out on a new career as labor organizer at the age of 50.

She began working as an organizer for the Knights of Labor and the United Mine Workers union. She traveled constantly, often living without permanent home or income, moving from one industrial area to the next, wherever she was needed although she was primarily concerned with the plight of children working in the textile mills in the East and that of the coal miners in the West. A  group of  oppressed mine workers and their families eventually revolted  against mine owners in 1890. While the miners went on strike, it was Mother Jones who encouraged the men to allow let their wives to fight alongside their husbands in a series of “mop and broom” brigades. 

In 1903, upset about the lax enforcement of the child labour laws in the Pennsylvania mines and silk mills, she organized a Children's March from Philadelphia to the home of then president Theodore Roosevelt in New York. She spent the last 50 years of her life in a crusade to organize the workers, to support strike efforts, and to bring public attention to the cause. She was dubbed as “the most dangerous woman in America” at the ripe age of 60.

In the 1989-90 Pittston Coal strike the wives and daughters of the miners organized themselves as the "Daughters of Mother Jones" and represented the strikers to the press.

Experts also speculate that the American classic “She’ll be Coming Around the Mountain” is in fact about Mother Jones and her travels promoting unionization of the Appalachian coal miners.
The magazine Mother Jones, established in 1970, is named after her.

AWU post and comments at http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2170272342360&set=o.343338393054&type=1

Vivian Maier

The story of Vivian Maier is so incredible that the man who discovered her, John Maloof, says: "If you made this up for Hollywood it would be like, 'Oh, come on, that's too hard to believe.' She is," he adds, "the most riveting person I have ever encountered."

The people that remember Maier – the Chicago families for whom she worked as a nanny in the 1950s and 1960s – recall a reclusive, eccentric individual, one who spoke in a thick French accent and wore a heavy overcoat and hat even in the height of summer. Her former charges often invoke Mary Poppins to describe her and Maloof calls her, "a really, really awesome person to hang out with if you were a kid. To be honest, I wish she had been my nanny. She would take kids on these wild adventures that only the coolest kids would think of doing."

They had no idea, though, that their nanny spent her days off taking some of the most extraordinary images of the 20th century. When Maier died in 2009 she left behind around 100,000 negatives that no one but she had ever seen. Now, the first exhibition of her work opened at the Chicago Cultural Centre in January and John Maloof is at work on a feature-length documentary about her life.

Many of her images are of people on the margins; she documented the poor, elderly and homeless of New York and Chicago, and certainly seems to have thought of herself as a fellow outsider. It's hard to imagine, then, this intensely private person welcoming the sort of exposure and excitement that her work is getting now. That's something that Maloof has agonised over.

"I hope she's OK with what I'm doing," he says. "She had no love life, no family and really had nobody that was close to her. The only thing that she had was the freedom of her camera to express herself and I think the reason she kept it secret is because it's all she had."

You can see her photographic work and learn more about Maier here:

http://vivianmaier.blogspot.com/

and here:

http://www.vivianmaier.com/

There are many YouTube videos telling the story of Maier and showing some of her slides, beginning here:

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

AWU post and comments at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_343338393054&view=permalink&id=10150274121163055

Kate Millett

"The feminist time forgot?" 

Earlier this week, someone suggested to me that Betty Friedan’s 1963 book The Feminine Mystique should be read by ALL women. And I hedged on this. (to see my comments & more see the AWU post originally from Tuesday @ 12:06) Then let me be clear here. It’s a fine book that indisputably changed Americans lives as a New York Times bestseller and beyond. But now that I have “a room of one’s own” (at least I’m renting it on Fridays) I want to emphasize that my equivocation on that blanket proclamation stems not from the fact that I think its content is “crappy” as was charged, but with my persistent discomfort with how and why some ideas, people and products become more popular than others and the ways in which our discourses reinscribe this hegemonic order. Of particular concern to me and many feminists is how the media has contributed to the cultural conversation about feminism at different historical moments over the past twenty-five years.

Surely you have heard of Freidan even if you haven’t read her study. Perhaps you are even more familiar with the face of Gloria Steinem. The images and ideas of both these second-wave feminists have seeped into our popular cultural psyche for the past half century or so for better or worse (and mostly it’s good). But honestly, how many people in the world, women (or men) have ever heard of Kate Millet or studied her book Sexual Politics? As an academic who works between the borders of mass communications and gender studies, my interest lies at the role the media – now including social networking - play in the re-presentation of the women’s rights movements. So my concern here is the way that some through discourse and media systems some Why did liberal feminism (a la Freidan and Steinem) eclipse radical feminism, which was just as strong of a branch in the late 1960s and early 70s? (There’s a great book on this by Alice Echols called Daring to Be Bad). I wish to echo the argument of some others before me that it is due, at least in part to the fact that the ideology of liberal feminism resonates much more with capitalism, and that Steinem’s politics and persona – she came of age with the TV generation, fit much more within the beauty myth parameters of attractiveness and acceptability. Remember the famous poll that showed viewers who watched the 1960 presidential debate on TV said Kennedy won, while listeners in radioland said Nixon bested him? Same deal. 


Sexual Politics was one of the great cornerstones of Radical Feminist literature. (Briefly, radical feminists locate the root cause of women's oppression in patriarchal gender relations, as opposed to legal systems (as in liberal feminism) Radical feminists seek to abolish patriarchy, even as it exists in liberal-patriarchalism of the U.S. political economy. They believe that the way to deal with patriarchy and oppression of all kinds is to address the underlying causes of these problems through revolution not reform. It is known that Betty Friedan and other liberal feminists often see precisely the radicalism of radical feminism as potentially undermining the gains of the women's movement with polarizing rhetoric that invites backlash and hold that they overemphasize sexual politics at the expense of political reform. So which one do you think a corporate media monopoly would prefer?

A brief biography: In 1970, Kate Millett wrote Sexual Politics, a groundbreaking, bestselling analysis of female oppression. When "Sexual Politics" was published, Millett was 34, an unknown sculptor and activist living the life of an impoverished bohemian in New York's Bowery district. Born Katherine Murray Millett in St. Paul, Minn., Millett led a far different life than her strict Catholic parents had envisioned. Married to Japanese sculptor Fumio Yoshimura, to whom she dedicated "Sexual Politics," she maintained open relationships with a series of women. Upon the publication of her dissertation, Millett achieved instant fame and, compared with her formerly dire straits, a modest fortune of $30,000. The majority of this she spent to buy property in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., establishing the Women's Art Colony Farm for writers and visual artists.
Whether she liked it or not -- and for Millett, this seems to be forever an ambivalent question -- she became an overnight celebrity, lauded as the movement's perfect figurehead. She was brilliant, articulate, passionate in her activism, generous with her time and surprisingly gracious in interviews. The media swallowed her whole and spit out a simplified spokeswoman for the masses. Time magazine hailed her as "the Mao Tse-tung of Women's Liberation."

But Millett's public persona started to tarnish. The women's movement turned on her when she was outed as a lesbian. "The disclosure," said an article in Time, "is bound to discredit her as a spokeswoman for her cause." Indeed it did. And the gay movement lashed out at her for not coming out sooner. Millett wasn't easily defined -- and seemed continually misunderstood. There's Friedan, the stately matriarch; Steinem, the brassy babe; and Millett, the manic-depressive, married, bisexual, women's reformer, gay liberationist, reclusive sculptor, in-your-face activist, retiring Midwesterner, brassy New Yorker. There were too many mixed messages; she was far too conflicted and complicated a figure.

How is it that the great Kate Millett has nearly vanished from the collective consciousness? Certainly, she's overlooked by the media that once scrutinized her every move, and is barely a footnote in the minds of the very women who have profited from her labors. For whatever reason, my generation seems to be more familiar with Betty Friedan, Germaine Greer and Gloria Steinem, Millett's onetime peers. These feminist hall-of-famers -- who respectively authored "The Feminine Mystique" and founded the National Organization for Women; wrote "The Female Eunuch"; and co-founded Ms. magazine -- remain in the Zeitgeist. Biographies of Friedan and Greer were published this past year, as were books penned by both women; and Steinem remains the biggest women's lib celeb of them all.

In 1999, Millett surfaced in the most disconcerting manner, when an article she wrote for the London Guardian was excerpted and circulated on the Internet. In the article, titled "The Feminist Time Forgot," Millett comes across as desperate and destitute, fearful of future "bag-lady horrors." Despite her credentials, she can't get a decent teaching job, not even at an extension night school. No one returns her calls. She can't even get hired as a temp. "I don't type well enough," Millett writes ruefully. She's offered $1,000 to republish "Sexual Politics," an embarrassing sum she refuses. (Ironically, notes Millett, Doubleday is putting out an anthology of the 10 most important books it's published in the past century -- an excerpt from "Sexual Politics" is included.) Most astonishing is the news that she earns a living selling Christmas trees from her farm. "I begin to wonder what is wrong with me," she writes. "Am I 'too far out' or too old? Is it age? I'm 63. Or am I 'old hat' in the view of the 'new feminist scholarship'?".

Yes, Virginia, in a perfect world, we all would read all the books and all the books would be perfect. Let me leave you with an even more fantastical scenario. If you’re going to be stranded on a desert island, and you can only bring one book and the library has only either The Feminine Mystique or Sexual Politics, I recommend you take the latter.

So what are your thoughts on how the media convergence of the publishing industry, social networking sites, advertising, and other forms of corporate power has crafted how we discuss feminism and/or other grass-roots social movements?

Thank you Salon.com for a lot of the valuable info herein.

AWU post & comments at http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2032239479408&set=o.343338393054&type=1

Enheduanna

♥ ♥ ♥ The Awesome Woman of the Day is Enheduanna, Priestess of Inanna (2285-2250 B.C.E.) The daughter of a king, symbolic wife of a god, she is the world's oldest known author whose works were written in cuneiform approximately 4300 years ago. Credited as being the earliest recorded feminist. Her poems are highly politicized in their outrage at the downfall of her father's imperial command. The highly charged verses, which are sensual, intimate and highly personal, convey her cosmic vision and moral distress at an era which will end with their reign.

She is recognized as the virtual personification of Inanna, the primary goddess of the moon. Her royal duties included restoration of the giparu (the ancient complex in Ur), the purification or the water rites, the composition of hymns of praise, and the carrying in of the offerings in the gimasab-basket. Her music-making role, in her composition of hymns and songs and poetry, honors the moon god, displaying fertility, fecundity and good harvest. She also acts as a political mediator in that she mirrors her father's power and authority with the military.

Her hymns had a profound impact on religious heritage and after her death there is no other attested literature focusing on the moon god. Enheduanna sings songs of praise or paeans and incantations to the goddess and plays a musical instrument, probably a lyre, as several are found buried at Ur, and one rests in the University Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology.

Writing and art were elite privileges, as literacy was restricted to a powerful elite. Considered the first non-anonymous author in world literature, the authority of her colophon declares the hymns to be hers, as does her employment of her first name, in the first person narrative, "I, Enheduanna…"

Banishment from Ur

You asked me to enter the holy cloister,
The giparu,
and I went inside, I the high priestess
Enheduanna!
I carried the ritual basket and sang
Your praise.
Now I am banished among the lepers.
Even I cannot live with you.
Shadows approach the light of day, the light
Is darkened around me,
Shadows approach the daylight,
Covering the day with sandstorm.
My soft mouth of honey is suddenly confused.
My beautiful face is dust.

http://www.transoxiana.org/0108/roberts-enheduanna.html

AWU post & comments at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_343338393054&view=permalink&id=10150271981388055

Stephanie Wetzel

The awesome woman of the day is someone none of you have heard of.  Her name is Stephanie Wetzel. She is our (the Philosophy Department) outstanding graduate of the year.  She is a double major in Philosophy and Biology, so very smart and dedicated.

She is without doubt one of the best students to come through our department, but more than that, she is one of the all around best people.  Her attitude is always up and she never heard the word 'failure'.  This is not just in grades, but any challenge that comes her way.  She plans to go to med school (and has been accepted in several) and after that I expect to see her heading up something like Doctors Without Borders.  She has done an internship in South America where she handled everything thrown her way, up to and including delivering babies.  She's humble, self effacing and funny.  Intensely curious, she is interested in everything from symbolic logic to climate change.  She is one of those graduates I'll always remember, and expect to see making a difference. And she's one of those students I'll miss terribly.

AWU post and comments at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_343338393054&view=doc&id=10150271815343055

Lorraine Hansberry

Today’s AWU WOD is Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965). She was the first African-American woman playwright to have a play produced on Broadway. “A Raisin in the Sun" debuted in 1959, it was inspired by her family's legal battle against racially segregated housing laws in the Washington Park Subdivision of the South Side of Chicago during her childhood. “A Raisin in the Sun” was hugely successful and helped to launch her career. In addition to being a playwright she also wrote political speeches, essays and letters. Hansberry contributed to the understanding of abortion, discrimination, and Africa. She joined the Daughters of Bilitis and contributed letters to their magazine, The Ladder, in 1957 that addressed feminism and homophobia. Although Hansberry married a white Jewish man, Robert Nemiroff in 1953, the couple separated in 1957 and divorced in 1964, it is rumored that Hansberry was a Lesbian. Hansberry was conscious of her lesbian identity and she negotiated between the public and private spheres. Black lesbians encountered racism from the mainstream, white gay culture, and also persecution from heterosexual blacks. Hansberry spent her short life trying to raise awareness of the troubles of the world through her literature. She suffered a long battle with pancreatic cancer and died on January 12, 1965, at the age of 34. Her premature death, cut short a promising career. A message from Martin Luther King Jr. was read at her funeral: "Her creative ability and her profound grasp of the deep social issues confronting the world today will remain an inspiration to generations yet unborn." He was right, her legacy lives on, both " A Raisin in the Sun and A Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window are staples of high school English classrooms. ".

AWU post and comments at http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2150637491501&set=o.343338393054&type=1

Chef Ann Cooper

Todays very Awesome Woman is Chef Ann Cooper, a.k.a. The Renegade Lunch Lady.

Cooper is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, and was among the first 50 women to be certified as an Executive Chef by the educational arm of the American Culinary Federation. She had a strong career going as a noted chef, having held positions with Holland America Cruises, Radisson Hotels, the Telluride Bluegrass and Film Festivals and the Telluride Ski Resort where she catered parties of up to 20,000. She has been featured in numerous newspapers, magazines, radio show, and television shows, has given seminars at Smithsonian Institute ... the list of honors is long.

But rather than pursue this path to a pinnacle of riches, Cooper's focus shifted to the need to feed our children properly, and to care for our planet wisely. No longer could the environmental and health facts be ignored when it came to producing food in this country. Cooper’s career shifted from primarily cooking to a path of cooking, writing, and public speaking – all advocacy work for a healthier food system.

Cooper uses her skills and background to create a sustainable model for schools nationwide to transition any processed food based K-12 school meal program to a whole foods environment where food is procured regionally and prepared from scratch. In 2009, Ann founded Food Family Farming Foundation (F3) as a nonprofit focusing on solutions to the school food crisis. F3's pivotal project is The Lunch Box - a web portal that provides free and accessible tools, recipes and community connections to support school food reform.

In adidition to writing books about food, cooking, health and sustainable practices, Cooper has also penned "A Woman's Place Is in the Kitchen," in which she discusses both traditional and current vantage points of women involved in the food service industry. Some of the historical issues discussed include: the influences of sociological change emanating from the transfer of power from matriarchal to patriarchal emphasis and the effects of the implementation of the brigade system which was developed from all-male military institutions.

A database of 6500 women and the compilation of 500 surveys provide statistics for the contemporary discussion. Women culinary professionals of today express passion for food while having to balance choices between professional and family obligations; what are the ramifications of these choices and how do they effect the culinary industry and the decisions made by colleagues, mentors and staff?

This is the first book that has been written exclusively about women chefs and restaurateurs; A Woman's Place is in the Kitchen provides an informative, insightful and objective portrait of the role of women working in the multi-faceted culinary field.

A TED Talk by Ann Cooper is available here, given in 2007 when she was the Director of Nutrition for Berkeley Unified School District, heading up an operation that provided 7100 meals a day to schoolchildren, and successfully introduced healthy, safe food into the system.



Ann Cooper's web site is at http://www.chefann.com/

AWU post and comments at http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2145399634804&set=o.343338393054&type=1

Bel Kaufman

The Awesome Woman of the Day is *Bel Kaufman* (born May 10, 1911) who at 100 years old is still an active and teaching a course in Jewish Humor at Hunter College, her alma mater (in the City University of New York system).

Bel Kaufman is the granddaughter of the famous Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem, described in a recent New York Times article about Kaufman as "a writer who was able to squeeze heartbreaking humor out of the most threadbare deprivation and wove the bittersweet Tevye stories that became the source for 'Fiddler on the Roof.'"

Kaufman emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States at the age of 12 and was forced to start school in the first grade. Only 11 years later she had graduated from Hunter, and then pursued a master's at Columbia University. She began to teach in New York City Schools, and worked part-time as a writer for Esquire and other publications.
In 1965 her book Up the Down Staircase was published, a novel that deals with the experience of a new teacher's experience dealing with both the other teachers and the educational system, and the students. The book was based upon Kaufman's own teaching experiences.

Kaufman has carried on the tradition of distinctly Jewish humor her grandfather was known for. The Times article opens with this example:

When Bel Kaufman sits you down on her sofa and asks, “Are you comfortable?” the right answer, she reminds you, requires a Yiddish inflection, a shrug and the words, “I make a living.”

In explaining the origins and particular flavor of Yiddish humor, Kaufman explained to the Times reporter:

“It goes back to immigration from the shtetl, from that poverty, and because the Jew was the object of so much opprobrium and hatred,” she said. “The jokes were a defense mechanism: ‘We’re going to talk about ourselves in a more damaging way than you could.’ ”

When asked about the secret to her longevity in a New York Post article earlier this year, Kaufman answered, "I'm too busy to grow old."

There are beautiful pictures of her at Sholem Alecheim's 150th birthday celebration In the blog of Joan L. Roth, a photographer and writer who has done much documentary work about Jewish Women. See http://joanlroth.blogspot.com/2009/03/bel-kaufman-theodore-bikel.html

Other links:
NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/nyregion/bel-kaufman-at-100-still-a-teacher-and-a-jokester.html

NY Post: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/prof_shticks_to_her_guns_18F6lFUm9wG983kyjevRgP

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bel_Kaufman

AWU post and comments at http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2142272996640&set=o.343338393054&type=1

Fawzia Azfhal-Khan

I have the best boss. Her grace, talent and intellect help make it a pleasure to go to work. How many people can say that? Do you? Today’s Awesome Woman of the Day is Dr. Fawzia Azfhal-Khan. Fawzia is Director of Women and Gender Studies, Full Professor of English, and University Distinguished Scholar at Montclair State University in New Jersey (where I teach).

Fawzia is a cultural materialist who works at the intersection of Feminist Theory, Cultural and Performance Studies, and Postcolonial Studies. She is author of 5 books, a frequent contributor to scholarly journals and a published poet and playwright. Azfhal-Khan is a Contributing Editor to TDR (The Drama Review), and serves on the Advisory Board of SAR (the South Asian Review). She is also a trained vocalist in the North Indian Classical tradition. Her music videos exploring themes of gender, religion, class , set in Pakistan, can be viewed on youtube (FAK Lahore, FAK Payal, FAK Smokescreen, FAK Sacrifice). She was a founding member of the experimental theatre collective Compagnie Faim de Siecle, with whom she toured and performed in Europe and North America. Her current research work is focused on Pakistani Popular Culture and she teaches classes on Muslim Women prose writers, , Global Feminisms et al.

Afzal-Khan received her BA in Lahore, Pakistan, and her MA and PhD in English Literature from Tufts University, Ma. She has also been a Visiting Professor at Harvard University. Among her many achievements, she was recognized by American Muslim Alliance with its Excellence in Public Life Award Presented in Appreciation for doing a superb job as an author, artist, and performer in connecting the past with the present, and for using her art to reinvigorate multifold linkages between truth and beauty.

Her latest publication is a controversial memoir entitled Lahore With Love; Growing Up With Girlfriends Pakistani-Style. The novel weaves through Fawzia’s life and its memories as she searches for an identity in the post-colonial chaos. “For women growing up in Pakistan’s patriarchal, segregated society, it is not surprising that female friendships take on a deep, enduring resonance... These relationships, formed in adolescence and nurtured into adulthood, gave me the strength to be defiant, developing a wry sense of humour to weather the contradictions of daily life in Pakistan, and memories to sustain me as I continued to straddle two continents and two cultures,” she said.

In one of her most widely-read texts, the author confronts a common assumption that Muslim women don’t—or can’t – have a voice of their own. Fawzia Afzal-Khan aims to break that idea into tiny pieces with a book: Shattering the Stereotypes: Muslim Women Speak Out (2005). The book is a compilation of works written by different Muslim women, with a forward written by Nawal El Saadawi. In the introduction, Afzal-Khan explains that this books aims to counter the negative attitudes and ideas about Muslim women that are still proliferated post-9/11. It’s divided into works of non-fiction, poetry, journalism, religious discourses, fiction, and plays. Many of the authors in the book use 9/11 as a catalyst, writing about its effects on their lives or examining the effects it had on other Muslim women’s lives. The book is a powerful one, and it successfully shatters common stereotypes I’ve witnessed that Muslim women aren’t American and aren’t willing to speak up for themselves.

So my question is, how does your boss and or co-workers inspire you? If you can’t honestly say that they do, what part may you play in actively moving yourself to a place where you are loving what you do and are becoming?

AWU post and comments at http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2016564367540&set=o.343338393054&type=1

Frances Xavier Warde

Inspired by a plaque discovered while strolling through the streets of Pittsburgh this weekend, Today’s AWU Woman of the Day is: Frances Xavier Warde. Born at Belbrook House, Mountrath, Queen's County, Ireland, 1810; died September 17,1884 in Manchester, N.H. She led a group of six Sisters across the Atlantic from Ireland and started a chapter of the Sisters of Mercy in the United States. The Sisters of Mercy began in Ireland in the 1820’s as the House of Mercy established by Catherine McAuley. The House of Mercy became home to the Sisters of Mercy, a new congregation of religious women who, in time, added a fourth vow – a vow of service – to their lifelong commitment to Christ and to his sisters and brothers in need of education, health care, and relief from poverty. As they continued to walk among those they served, the Sisters of Mercy experienced the transformation of early criticism into an admiring nickname – the “walking sisters.”


In 1843 Frances Xavier Warde began in Pittsburgh and by the time of her death in 1884, she had helped establish over 82 Mercy convents, schools, hospitals, orphanages and other works of mercy in some 20 cities across 9 states. Over the course of the next 120 years, many more communities of religious women came to Western Pennsylvania. Some were cloistered nuns, dedicated to a life of prayer. Many came in answer to the call for teachers in the parochial schools established in the Dioceses of Pittsburgh, Erie, Altoona-Johnstown and Greensburg. Some of those communities also responded to the need to provide nurses and agreed to begin healthcare facilities of their own, or to staff or manage hospitals sponsored by local community groups.

A handful of religious communities were devoted exclusively to healthcare. In all, a total of 16 communities of Roman Catholic Sisters worked in over thirty-four hospitals and healthcare facilities in Western Pennsylvania during the period from 1847 to 1969. Although some communities are no longer involved in hospital work, their work in various healthcare-related ministries continues to the present day.

When Sisters began their nursing ministry, some ten years before Florence Nightingale made professionalism a watchword among nurses, they were looked down on for being both nurses and Roman Catholics. Anti-Catholic sentiment was high during those early years in the history of the United States. The turning point for the Sisters and their work was the Civil War. As one of the first groups of organized nurses, Sisters were called to service to care for soldiers regardless of whether Union or Confederate, and without regard to race or religion. The Sisters of Mercy of Pittsburgh responded to the call of Abraham Lincoln and sent Sisters to run military hospitals and care for injured soldiers from the battle fields. Their service, along with that of other congregations throughout the country was recognized by President Lincoln.

"Of all the forms of charity and benevolence seen in the crowded wards of the hospitals, those of Catholic Sisters were among the most efficient. I never knew whence they came or what was the name of their order. More lovely than anything I have ever seen in art so long devoted to illustration of love, mercy, and charity are the pictures that remain of those modest Sisters going on their errands of mercy among the suffering and dying..." [Attributed to Lucius Chittenden in his book "Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration" (1891)]

AWU post & comments at http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2132695722968&set=o.343338393054&type=1

Rose Mapendo

Today's very AWESOME WOMAN is Rose Mapendo - who, with her brother Dr. Kigabo Mbazumutima, launched Mapendo New Horizons ("MNH"). MNH is a non-profit organization committed to promoting health, peace, reconciliation and equity in African territories, including the Great Lakes region, where extreme violence and abuse have left countless survivors -- especially women and children -- in need of medical, emotional, and social healing.

As civil war escalated in her homeland in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Rose, her husband and seven of her eight children were arrested and imprisoned in a death camp after President Kabila announced that their ethnic group was the enemy. While in prison, Rose's captors executed her husband and very soon thereafter, she learned that she was pregnant. Rose delivered premature twins by herself on the concrete slab floor of her jail cell, using a piece of wood to cut the umbilical cords and tying the cords with strands of her hair. After surviving sixteen months of horrendous conditions in the death camp, Ms. Mapendo was rescued by an American peace-keeping group and resettled in the United States. Once resettled, she commenced her efforts as a global advocate for peace and reconciliation.

In 2009, Rose Mapendo won the United Nations Humanitarian of the Year Award. Rose's inspiring life story has been chronicled in the documentary film Pushing The Elephant, which premiered in New York City in June 2010. (More links below the video)



Facebook fan page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rose-Mapendo/133644953335041?sk=wall
Mapendo's New Horizons (Rose's bio page) http://mapendonewhorizons.org/node/34
Interview with Mapendo: http://www.unhcr.org/4979ca8b4.html

AWU post at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_343338393054&view=permalink&id=10150260800558055

Margot Dydek

I could say I picked her this week because she’s a beautiful, talented and successful role model. However, in truth, the fairy tale like fascination with someone who is MORE THAN TWO FEET TALLER THAN ME is too tempting to resist. For that reason, today’s Awesome Woman of the Day is Margot Dydek.

Małgorzata Dydek (28 April 1974 – 27 May 2011), known as Margo Dydek in the United States, was a Polish international professional basketball player. Standing 7 ft 2 in (2.18 m) tall, she was famous for being the tallest active professional female basketball player in the world. Dydek weighed 223 pounds and had a 7-foot wingspan, yet was distinguished by a grace and agility that belied her size. In 2001, she was the league leader in defensive rebounds, with 214.

Dydek was drafted 1st overall in the 1998 WNBA Draft by the Utah Starzz. She played 10 full seasons of U.S. professional basketball before resuming her career across Europe and was a member of the Polish Olympic team at the Sydney Games in 2000, Dydek currently holds the record for most blocks in a WNBA career, with 877 blocks in 323 games.

Margo Dydek was born in WarsaW to a 6'7" father and a 6'3 mother. She had two sisters, her elder sister, Kashka (6'7") used to play for the Colorado Xplosion of the now defunct ABL, and in Poland. Her younger sister (standing 6'6") graduated from the University of Texas-El Paso where she played basketball and played in Spain professionally in the 2000s. Her mom, Maria Dydek was a seamstress and made all of the family’s out-sized clothes. Popular with players and fans, Margo spoke five languages and was affectionately called Large Marge by teammates.

Dydek, incidentally, was also the leader in flagrant fouls and suspensions some seasons. But she calls herself a good girl. Is it her fault that she looms large in the low post, she wonders. Each of Dydek's flagrants (and suspensions) has come, she insists, as a result of her elbows being face-level with most players in the league. "It's not intentional," she says. "Most times, I don't even see the other player coming." Ouch!

On May 19, 2011, Dydek, at the time pregnant with her third child, suffered a severe heart attack and was placed in a medically induced coma at a Brisbane hospital. She had been working as a coach for the Northside Wizards in the Queensland Basketball League. Dydek collapsed at her home in Brisbane and was taken by ambulance to a hospital. She never regained consciousness and died eight days later on May 27, 2011.[5] As Dydek was early in her pregnancy, the fetus also died.Rest in peace, Large Marge.

OK, now that I’ve outwardly expressed my deep-seated childhood fantasies with giants, let’s get to the real issues. Why is women’s basketball commonly considered “boring”? As a Duke alumni, I know well that the Blue Devils get far more attention than the “Lady” Blue Devils. The ratings gap in viewership of college and pro games and subsequent gendered wage gap in star players’ salaries seem to support this. But have money and popularity ever ben any indication of quality? And many viewers felt the 2011 NCAA women’s basketball final was much more exciting & exhilarating than its counterpart. So, are women naturally inferior athletes to men who can dunk? Or is this society’s sexism at play? Certainly their defensive skills are superior. But are we using an androcentric yardstick? What are your thoughts?

AWU post at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_343338393054&view=permalink&id=10150260288413055

Gaby Kennard

Today's Awesome Woman is Gaby Kennard (1944 - ) She is the first Australian woman to circumnavigate the globe by airplane. At the age of 33, as a single mother, Gaby decided the time had come to do something about her passion for flying. By scrimping and saving, Gaby took up flying lessons at the South Coast Aero Club, NSW.

In 1989 she set off from Sydney Australia, in a single engined Piper Saratoga to comemorate Amelia Earhart's flight around the world. The trip made Kennard a celebrity and she used this status to raised $A205,000 for the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia.

Qantas has recently announced that they will be naming one of their Airbus A380's after Gaby Kennard in recognition of her contribution to the aviation industry and particularly of her achievement
http://www.gabykennard.biz/

AWU post & comments at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_343338393054&view=permalink&id=10150259114993055