Author: Feminist Majority Foundation Blog

Internationally acclaimed artist Beatrice Wood, known professionally as Beato and the “Mama of Da Da,” died earlier this month. Wood was known for her ceramic sculptures, drawings and lithographs. Wood wrote more than 6 books and a play and studied painting at the French Academie Julien, acting with a member of the Theatre Francais and dancing with Klyustin, Pavlova’s matre de ballet.

“Titanic” director James Cameron patterned the older “Rose” character after Wood, who is seen creating pots at a wheel. Wood became interested in ceramics when she decided to make a teapot to match a set of teacups from Holland. She set up her own studio in Los Angeles in 1937.

Wood is known as the “Mama of Da Da” for the major role she played in establishing arts’ post-WWI, Da Da movement, and her relationships with French novelist Henri Pierre Roche and artist Marcele DuChamp.

Wood’s autobiography, I Shock Myself, was published in 1985.

Many women who search for mentors in their profession have found only men in top-level positions and that these men are often unwilling to offer advice. Debra Meyerson, a researcher at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Stanford University, said that mentoring “is important for everybody, but it’s probably even more important for women.”

Ted Childs, vice-president of global work force diversity at IBM, which runs a twenty-year-old mentoring program, said that mentor relationships usually happen naturally, “But generally the beneficiaries have been white men, because they were in the senior positions, and they would mentor people who came along with whom they had things in common,” usually younger white men.

Men, however, are quickly realizing that female supervisors can provide more than adequate advice. Robert Cordero, a counselor at a rehabilitation clinic in New York, said that his views of professional women have changed. “I’m from the old school…you know, men are men, and we don’t need to be asking the women. But I’ve gotten past that. She’s helped me with that,” Cordero said. “I probably wouldn’t be where I’m at professionally [without her advice].”

According to a U.N. report, each year 20 million women around the world risk their lives obtaining unsafe abortions. Approximately 80,000 women die from unsafe abortions annually.

Dr. Jerker Liljestrand of the World Health Organization said that of the 20 million unsafe abortions performed, 95 percent are carried out in developing countries, by untrained practitioners in unclean environments using unrefined methods.

Liljestrand, WHO’s chief of maternal and newborn health, said that some methods include pressing weights on a woman’s abdomen to expel the fetus, or prescribing special “potions.” “And there isn’t a backup necessary if complications arise. … The poorer the woman, the more likely she’ll have to settle for a more dangerous abortion. … If a woman is poor and desperate enough she will get a back street abortion or a botched abortion,” said Liljestrand.

Carla Abou-Zahr, WHO’s technical director of reproductive health, said that mechanical methods of abortion include, “very vigorous massages to the woman’s abdomen or applying heavy weights in an attempt to expel the fetus. … Sometimes a stick or a needle is inserted into the cervix,” or “a liquid preparation such as soap, not always very effective, is sometimes introduced to provoke the abortion. This often introduces infection.”

The study stated that between 10 and 50 percent of all women who undergo unsafe abortions suffer complications, including severe infection, hemorrhaging and puncturing or tearing of the uterus. Complications also include long-term problems, such as pelvic pain or inflammatory disease, tubal blockage and secondary infertility.

The report said that up to 50 percent of developing countries’ hospital budgets go towards treating the complications of unsafe abortions. “Contrary to common belief, the legalization of abortion does not necessarily increase abortion rates,” the study declared. “The Netherlands, for example, has a non-restrictive abortion law, widely accessible contraceptives and free abortion services, and the lowest abortion rate in the world.”

The WHO report urged international organizations and governments to work towards universal access to family planning, the availability of safe abortions, and better post-abortion care.

Feminist News Stories on Abortion

The Maryland House of Delegates voted to increase the number of poor teenage women who qualify for state-funded abortions yesterday. The new law will offer health and insurance benefits to 60,000 more children and pregnant women whose earnings are moderate, but not low enough to qualify for Medicaid.

Although federal law prohibits the use of government dollars for abortions except in the case of rape, incest or to protect the mother’s life, Maryland law allows state-funded abortions to protect the mental health of the mother and in cases of possible genetic defects of the fetus. State officials estimate that the new law will provide state-funded abortions for 60 additional teenage women a year.

Betsy Cavendish, legal director for the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, said “By and large Maryland is one of the leading states in beating back anti-choice legislation.”

This year, the Maryland Senate voted against a ban on D&X abortions, citing interpretations of such a law that might prohibit all abortions. The Virginia General Assembly and 22 other states have passed D&X bans.

Feminist News Stories on Abortion

Britain’s Secretary of State for Social Security Harriet Harman announced plans for new programs that will put an end to the idea of a male “breadwinner.” Harman said, “Key factors taken for granted in post-war society cannot be taken for granted in the 1990s,” said Harman. “Today, in most quarters at any rate, we have moved on. Our goal is employability for men and women.”

Chancellor Gordon Brown announced that around 250,000 mostly female partners of unemployed Jobseeker’s Allowance applicants, 95 percent of whom are male “breadwinners,” will be offered a chance to join welfare-to-work programs.

A pre-budget report by Martin Taylor, chief executive of Barclays Bank, said “The existing rules seem to be left over from the days when it was assumed that all men worked and their wives did not. Today, when 47 percent of employees are women, basic benefit policy on such a notion is, to say the least, inappropriate.”

Catalyst, a non-profit organization that works to advance women in business, announced a new study aimed at understanding why women constitute only a little more than a quarter of all MBA students nationwide. Researchers will investigate the strengths and weaknesses of MBA programs for women and will examine the support that female MBA students receive.

Women make up only 29 percent of MBA students. However, women-owned businesses that employ over 15 million people have increased by 18 percent in the last five years.

Catalyst President Sheila Wellington said, “The enrollment of women at the nation’s leading business schools has stagnated, even while enrollments of women in other professional programs, like law and medicine, mirror the nation’s economic trend toward having nearly equal representation of men and women.”

Carol Hollenshead, Director of the Center for the Education of Women, stated “A great deal of progress has been made in understanding how to attract women to science and engineering careers and we hope to replicate that trend for women and business.”

The University of Michigan Business School and The Center for the Education of Women at the University of Michigan will also participate in the study.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton announced plans for the The Women’s Museum, a national museum scheduled to open in Dallas’ Fair Park in October 2000. The museum will highlight the achievements of women.

Rodham Clinton said that the museum is important, since American schools tend to skim over the history of women’s achievements.

The First Lady commented on the fight for women’s equality, stating “I hope that all of us know that the struggle is far from over,” and said that the museum will “help ensure that the struggle and the history of the struggle is told and continues.”

The National Museum of American History unveiled a permanent exhibit dedicated to Ella Fitzgerald, the country’s noted “First Lady of Song.” Museum Director Spencer Crew said “More than anything else, what the exhibit serves to convey is a glimpse of a highly individual performance style and personal warmth that was Ella Fitzgerald’s ability to sing and to reach across from the stage and to touch millions.”

The exhibit will include samples from some 250 albums she recorded, awards and sheet music, her trademark two-piece red suit and pill box hat and a 17-minute video.

White House administration officials urged Congress to pass legislation without an anti-abortion provision to pay almost $1 billion in outstanding United Nations dues and grant $18 billion for the International Monetary Fund. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin all urged House Republicans to drop the anti-abortion language from the fund legislation. The language prohibits money from going to groups that offer family planning or abortion services.

Albright said that the anti-abortion provision, which could result in a veto of the bill by President Clinton, should be considered separately.

Similar language killed U.N. and IMF funding legislation last year. Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) said the situation “is about as bleak as it gets.”

Ann Sayre, the author who helped gain recognition for British crystallographer Rosalind Franklin, died on Friday from scleroderma, a rare rheumatoid disorder. She was 74. Sayre’s book, Rosalind Franklin and DNA, was published in 1975 and was hailed by feminists for helping to expose Dr. Franklin’s pivotal role in the discovery of DNA and the sexism in the scientific world that denied her recognition for this find.

Sayre’s book recalled Franklin’s diffraction X-ray photograph of a DNA molecule that was later given to Dr. James Watson and Dr. Francis Crick, who won recognition their discovery of the double helix that forms deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). In Sayre’s book, Dr. Crick admitted that Franklin was close to discovering the double helix herself.

Sayre also wrote an honored young adult book, Never Call Retreat, in 1957. She received her law degree from New York University late in life, worked as a volunteer Legal Aid lawyer, and became town justice in Head of the Harbor, New York.

A National Labor Committee (NLC) report reveals an increase in the use of sweatshop laborers, mainly young Chinese women, by U.S. companies for designer-label clothes. NLC director Charles Kernaghan said, “We found forced overtime, 60-96 hour work weeks, 10-15 hour shifts, six and seven days a week for below-subsistence wages of 13-28 cents an hour, without benefits.” The group also reported that the women were housed in crowded dorms and fed meals that consisted mostly of rice.

The 85-page report , compiled from interviews with workers that were conducted by local Chinese women, listed 18 big-name U.S. companies, including Kathie Lee Gifford, Ann Taylor, Wal-Mart, and J.C. Penney. NLC investigated 21 Chinese factories which all produced clothes for export to the U.S.

“Corporate America has taken gross advantage and is exploiting desperate people,” said Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Other companies listed in the report included Adidas, Bugle Boy, Dayton Hudson Corp., Disney, Ellen Tracy, Esprit Group, Federated Department Stores, Kmart Corp., The Limited, May Co., Nike, Ralph Lauren, Reebok International, Sears, and Liz Claiborne.

Feminists Against Sweatshops

Nicaraguan Minister of Labor Wilfredo Navarro signed a 10-point Code of Ethics that will regulate conditions and labor relations for women maquila workers in the country’s free-trade zone. The women work for maquiladora companies, which help foreign coorperations set up production operations in developing countries so that they can take advanatage of the lower labor costs and weaker laws.

Coordinator of ïMaria Elena Cuadra,’ a group for working and unemployed women, and union leader Sandra Ramos said, “[The code] is the result of five years of hard work – a long and difficult struggle, in which the maquila workers gave the best of what they had.”

The Code acknowledges the “historical demands” of women maquila workers, prohibits hiring child workers under age 14, and demands: equal pay, protection from abuse and from discrimination because of pregnancy, periodical medical examinations, training programs and social security benefits.

The free-trade zone was activated in Nicaragua in 1992, employing 1,300 workers. Figures for 1997 report 15,000 maquila workers.

Ramos, author of an essay titled “Free-Trade Zone: A Woman’s Face,” said that this is the first Code of Ethics signed in Central America. “I believe that we have had enough confrontation; our women need jobs and employment stability and they need responsible organization to ensure employment and their rights …. The most difficult task will be to ensure that the companies abide by it,” said Ramos.

Sri Lankan nuns were admitted into the Buddhist clergy for the first time in 1,500 years. Women’s rights activist Sunila Abesekera said that the nun’s order was a victory but that significant Buddhist leaders still refuse to accept women as part of the clergy. Abesekera said, “It is important for people to invite these nuns for religious services at their homes and recognize them as part of the clergy …. I doubt if that will happen.”

Non-governmental organizations in Sri Lanka report an increased literacy rate for women at 87.9 percent, compared to 92.5 percent for men. Although Sri Lanka was the first country to produce a female prime minister there are still only 11 women in the 225-member parliament. Sri Lanka’s Women’s Affairs Minister, Hema Ratnayake said that she will introduce legislation that would reserve 25 percent of all political seats for women.

Three women have been assaulted in a week at the University of Maryland in College Park. Police report that a freshman was beaten and raped, a graduate student was pushed to the ground and kicked repeatedly and a man attempted to assault another graduate student, ordering her to get in her car. The most recent victim escaped after spraying the assailant in the face with pepper spray. University students are urging the police to step up security.

Police described one attacker as a 25 to 30-year-old white man with a deep voice, medium build, 6 feet 2 inches tall, weighing around 200 pounds, wearing a dark jacket. The suspect in the most recent attack was described as a white man, 6 feet tall, weighing around 195 pounds, with blond hair in a ponytail, wearing a plaid shirt under a dark jacket.

A study released in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology reports that women who exercised before they were pregnant may continue to do so during the pregnancies without negative effects.

Kristin R. Kardel and Dr. Trygve Kase of the University of Oslo in Norway reported, “Our results indicate that healthy and well-conditioned women may take part in exercise during pregnancy without compromising fetal growth and development as judged by birth weight or complicating the course of pregnancy or labor.”

Researchers studied 42 women who exercised prior to pregnancy and continued to do so until 6 weeks after delivery. The women exercised six times a week, wore heart monitors and kept diaries of their training.

There was no significant affect on labor, fetal birth weight or the health of the baby, although women who exercised more did gain more weight and went into labor earlier if they were having a girl.

Federal officials announced that investigations of the Alabama clinic and three Atlanta bombings will be merged into the Southeast Bombing Task Force. The Task Force will combine the recourses of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and state and local agencies in Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina.

The Task Force will investigate the January bombing of a Birmingham abortion clinic that killed clinic security guard Robert Sanderson and seriously injured clinic nurse Emily Lyons, as well as earlier Atlanta bombings of an abortion clinic, a gay and lesbian nightclub and a pipe-bomb explosion outside the Centennial Olympic Park.

Officials did not mention Eric Robert Rudolph, who is wanted for the Alabama clinic bombing, but they are investigating Rudolph’s possible involvement in the Atlanta crimes.

Call 1-888-ATF-BOMB with information regarding the bombing.

Pictures of Eric Robert Rudolph

Feminist News Stories on Clinic Violence

Daniela Owen, director of the World Food Programme (WFP) sub-office in Herat, near the Afghanistan border, says that the Taliban’s decree forbidding most women from working outside their homes is obstructing WFP work. Owen said, “The Taliban are not letting our staff monitor our projects.”

Although the WFP staff members revised their work methods so that they could work from home, they cannot continue the necessary house-to-house surveys needed to determine who needs food. Owen said that the agency also needs to hire more women who speak the local Pushtu language.

“It is a problem finding women to work under these conditions,” said Owen. “There is pressure from the community – neighbors will tell you ïyou will go to jail’. So there is cultural pressure. And nobody knows who is a Taliban informer and who is not.”

WFP members had considered hiring other Pushtu-speaking Muslim women to monitor projects and hunger needs, but are unable to since the Taliban’s recent verdict requiring all foreign Muslim women to be accompanied by a husband, father, brother or son while in public.

The non-governmental agency OxFam left Kabul after being told by the Taliban that their projects could not involve women.

Stop Gender Apartheid Now

Feminist News Stories on Afghanistan

Women in the remote village of Malicounda Bambara, Senegal have banned female genital mutilation (FGM). The village, approximately 40 miles from Dakar, is the first community in Senegal to prohibit FGM. Thirteen villages surrounding Malicounda have since prohibited the practice.

The women decided to ban FGM after taking classes offered by the government, religious groups, U.N. agencies and the non-governmental organization, TOSTAN. The classes were part of an intense anti-FGM awareness campaign focusing on excision, during which part or all of the labia and clitoris are amputated to remove a woman’s sexual desire, and its negative effects.

One Malicounda woman commented, “We do not want any more blood, any more suffering for our girls on their wedding night, no more girls dying from infection, hemorrhage or AIDS caused by excision.” Another Malicounda resident said, “We studied the rights of the individual, and we focused on the right to health that involves a woman’s freedom to make decisions about her body and to keep her body intact.”

FGM is practiced by approximately one-fifth of the Senegalese population. Political and religious leaders in Senegal have condemned the ritual.

Feminist News Stories on Female Genital Mutilation

Women whose husbands had recently been murdered in a December massacre demonstrated in front of the Mexican Senate, protesting the death threats and sexual harassment resulting from the women’s and their husbands’ political beliefs. The women said that the government was ignoring the harassment claims and their demands to release Zapatista prisoners. A demonstrator said, “They (the widows) are still being threatened and are being told that if they don’t leave their homes they will pay the consequences; they will be raped.”

A group of paramilitary gunman opened fire on Indian supporters of the Zapatista rebels in a Chiapas town, killing 45 civilians in late December.

Defense Secretary William Cohen declined a recommendation to segregate men and women during military training and instead called for the Navy, Air Force and Army to institute “corrective measures” intended to decrease the mistreatment of women. Cohen said, “We are not going to tolerate the abuse of women in the military.”

Cohen gave the services 30 days to draw up plans to increase female recruiters and trainers, to improve selection processes for trainers, to end harassment of women, and to “develop more consistent training standards between the genders.”

He also said that he would ask military chiefs to increase physical fitness standards for men and women and that he would reconsider the panel’s suggestion to segregate after changes had been made and the results were examined.

Cohen recognized that there has not been enough importance placed on attracting women to join as trainers and recruiters and that they are needed to serve as “role models” for incoming students.

Women make up 14 percent of the 1.45 million members of the United States military services.