“I’ve played tennis since I was 11 and I love it very much. When I was young I thought it was a sport just for the rich and white. There were a lot of non-tennis people who saw tennis for the first time tonight. You know I believe in spectator participation so a lot of my dreams came true tonight.”
Category: Herstory
Today in Feminist History: The National Woman’s Party Stands Its Ground (September 18, 1968)
But if conventional methods fail, the National Woman’s Party knows how to escalate. And this time they have a new ally. Barbara Ireton, president of the National Capital Area Chapter of the National Organization for Women, said it was decided at meetings held today in Washington and New York that if necessary, a ring of women will surround the property to protect it if the House passes the condemnation bill and President Johnson doesn’t veto it. So, history may repeat itself 51 years after the National Woman’s Party’s “Silent Sentinels” began going to jail in D.C. for peacefully protesting along the White House fence to pressure President Wilson into endorsing and lobbying for the Anthony Amendment. Updates will follow when there are further developments in this confrontation.
Today in Feminist History: The New Suffragist Headquarters (September 17, 1909)
Now that the nation’s largest suffrage group is situated in such a strategic location, and rent is not a burden, the future of our cause seems bright. Though women can only vote in four of the forty-six States (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho), the long drought – 13 years without winning the vote in a single State – may be about to end, and a suffrage renaissance begin!
Today in Feminist History: Dear President Wilson, “We Want Action!” (September 16, 1918)
As in ancient fights for liberty the crusaders for freedom symbolized their protest against those responsible for injustice by consigning their hollow phrases to the flames, so we, on behalf of thousands of suffragists, in the same way today protest against the action of the President and his party in delaying the liberation of American women.
Holocaust Daughters: A Genre
Arianna Neumann’s memoir, “When Time Stopped” (2020), is a mix of the daughters’ disinterest and feigned indifference, linked to our inability to ever really know and the refusal of our parents to tell.
“Holocaust survivors do not tell these stories, until they do. Daughters do not ask or search, until we must. And yet we know—students of the genre, as the genre—that all this trauma materializes in our families, in our genes, in our children and in our dreams.”
Today in Feminist History: The E.R.A. in the Senate (September 15, 1970)
But in a move that mirrored the kind of bias that still exists, our side was allowed only one day of testimony, despite opponents being given three last week. Fortunately, the witnesses made such great impressions, and made their points so well, that a single day may turn out to be sufficient.
Revisiting Bella Abzug’s Vision Post-Beijing, 25 Years Later
On September 12, 1995, Bella Abzug took to the podium at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China to ask: “What will we accomplish at the week’s end when the [Beijing] Platform for Action is adopted by the world’s women and its 189 governments?”
Since then, feminists have not stopped advocating for gender justice, and in facing current realities, have turned toward each other to build power, speak truth, and renew commitments to the promise of Beijing—to the promise of a just and healthy world.
Today in Feminist History: Labor Unions Support the E.R.A. (September 14, 1970)
But at today’s press conference, Dorothy Haener, representing United Auto Workers, noted that laws restricting the amount of weight a woman can lift had only been enforced in regard to keeping women out of high-paying jobs, and brought no benefit to women in minimum-wage jobs such as waitresses. Not only that, domestic workers, among the country’s lowest-paid, have always been exempt from weight-limit and maximum hour restrictions.
Today in Feminist History: Women Win the Vote in New Zealand (September 14, 1893)
In an unprecedented victory for the suffrage movement, all women in New Zealand, regardless of economic status or race, won full voting rights today!
Today in Feminist History: Pioneer Senator Margaret Chase Smith (September 13, 1948)
Though only one of ninety-six Senators, the experience she has gained in the House, and her determination to get things done should give Senator-elect Smith great influence in the Senate once she gets some seniority. At the very least, she will assure that for the next six years – and hopefully many more – the Senate will not be the “Boys’ Club” it has been since Hattie Caraway left just over three and a half years ago.