Category: Social Justice

My next birthday is one that ends in a “0” and requires a significant celebration. Last week I was told that this, my 60th year, is one of extraordinary challenges and opportunities in areas I’ve been exploring all my life. One of those areas is fear of heights. Learning to climb poles comfortably was a huge step toward conquering that fear, but now I’m thinking about skydiving on my birthday. I’m not sure I can do it; jumping out of a plane requires REAL courage–like that of some of the women I’ve studied during March–Women’s History Month.

Like Elinor Smith, who was born just a few years before my mother. Both of them were born before women were allowed to vote in the United States. Smith set a number of aviation records when she was still in her teens. She got in trouble for at least one of those records, flying under the four bridges that spanned the East River in New York City. Ms. Smith died at 98; her obituary on National Public Radio described her as a woman who started flying lessons when she was ten years old! I had never heard of her, but for a while she was more famous and accomplished than Amelia Earhart.

It might be hard to believe that women did these things nearly 100 years ago, but women have been flying since 1784 when Elisabeth Thible went up in a hot air balloon. Such achievements did not come easily. Women have fought for the right to do them. Winged Victory is a great place to learn more about the fight, as it was and continues.

During the long winter, I read a book called “Gone to Soldiers.” One of the characters was a woman who ferried planes from factories to air force bases. The women were never recognized as military personnel until 1977! They received few benefits for their work, but they loved to fly and wanted to contribute to the war effort.

Here’s hoping that each of us can learn to fly in her own way!

March 2010–Women’s History Month–flew by as is its habit. Again I am aware of my ignorance about the women who have shaped our country and our world. And again I find I know only a little about the women I did learn about as a kid. Amelia Earhart for instance…

The other night I watched the movie, “Amelia.” Before I watched it, I really had no idea of her marriage, her writing or her fight to achieve her dreams of flying. Her first flight across the Atlantic was as a passenger.

Mrs. Frederick E. Guest, the woman who financed the Friendship Flight, hired two men to do the actual flying. Amelia didn’t even get paid. The real accomplishment for a woman then was just making it across the pond by air. If they could see us now! Earhart did, however, fly solo across the Atlantic a few years later.

We take flying so for granted now, it’s really an awakening to see the movie’s depiction of the genuine risk and fear people had. Never knowing if they would return. And finally, Amelia Earhart did not return.

People are still looking for traces of her and her plane, lost on July 2, 1937. TIGHAR has some fascinating video and scientific information about the organization’s 20-year search for a trace of what happened to Earhart, her navigator Fred Noonan and their plane, the Electra.

The movie “Amelia” is described as a biography, and I understand it is fairly accurate. But I’m always a little skeptical, so in addition to the links on this post, check out Earhart’s official Web site as well as the books on which the movie is based–

• East to the Dawn by Susan Butler
• The Sound of Wings by Mary S. Lovell

On January 29, 2009, President Barack Obama signed his first bill into law–The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act. It extends the rights of women and other minority groups, to sue for equal pay for equal work.

Lilly Ledbetter was paid less than her male co-workers for almost two decades, but she didn’t realize it until it became too late to bring it to court. The bill is a response to a controversial 2007 Supreme Court ruling that severely restricted the statute of limitations on equal pay litigation. The original Court ruling gave a plaintiffs only 180 days within the initial incident of discrimination to file a complaint. Pretty ridiculous when it’s not always easy to find out what all your co-workers are paid!  The new bill extends the statute of limitations for 180 days after the last discriminatory pay check.

When the President signed the bill, he talked about the impact of unequal pay on employees, families and communities. As Steve Hilderbrand wrote in the Huffington Post:

“If anyone ever asks you, ‘Does it make a difference which political party controls Congress,’ I hope this is one clear and important example of what a difference it will make in the lives of millions of Americans who have suffered from discrimination in the workplace, that under Democratic control, equal pay for equal work will now be the law of the land.”

Sometimes people are amazed at the places I’ve been–Oaxaca, Zambia, Greece, Istanbul, Poland, Czech Republic, Budapest. Paris, Lille and London last spring were amazing, but not as exotic as the earlier destinations. Sometimes even I am surprised that I never even had a passport until 2004! But there are ways to experience the world  without leaving your home town.

One organization that is committed to creating such experiences is World of Difference. This organization, established in 2005, facilitates experiences for youth to develop skill, readiness and grace in intercultural relations. Their Cultural Ambassadors from more than 30 countries gently guide students through new concepts and thought processes. They address topics ranging from math ratios (African Drumming); to water ecology (Japanese Fish Printing); and government structures (Escaping Sudan).

These hands-on immersion workshops motivate students to explore more about the world, their classmates, and themselves. The workshops offer what text books and research projects cannot: interaction with challenging situations in which students examine their assumptions, beliefs, desires and strengths. After working the chores, playing the instruments, dancing to the music, speaking the language, hearing the accents, tasting the food and creating the art, World of Difference students are proud to proclaim, “I know about that!” Such experiences develop in students mental and emotional agility, preparing them for success in an ever-changing, uncertain global economy.

For more information or to schedule a program, contact Sherry Gupta, Executive Director, or Stacie Palmer at 515-273-8569.

Programs include–

World of Difference Girls

• Culture in the Classroom: 30- to 60-minute workshops
• Photo Ethnography: 5 day program using photography to explore local culture
• Look at the Workshops link especially for “Girls in the Middle East” for girls in 5th through 12th grades

The subject of feminism continues to trouble people a lot smarter than me. I did, however, live at a critical time of “Women’s Lib” as my mom called it. She sent me off to a small midwestern college in 1968, thinking I would be safe there from the ferment on college campuses. I had other ideas though; I immediately got involved in the peace movement and later, the women’s movement.

I woke up a college graduate with no MRS degree in sight and started the somewhat baffling task of supporting myself. Through a career of nearly 40 years in education, justice and finally business, I’ve developed a theory that  women will never be treated equally until we carry our own stuff.

However, in my travels to Mexico, Zambia and eastern Europe, I’ve see women carrying huge loads and still being beaten down. We’re very lucky here in the US, though we seem to be stalled and perhaps even losing ground. Every war begins with our own small battles, though, and there are certainly some we can fight on the home front–

• Find out how GIRLS can change the world
• Weigh in on a women’s happiness index
• Learn more about gender equality at UNFPA
• Find out how the United Nations Development Fund for Women is making a better life for all women
• Word has it that the best way to fight HIV/AIDS and other modern problems is through women’s education and financial independence
• Read this recent article–“Lift and Separate” from the New Yorker about the sharp divide between Americans, and women in particular, on the subject of feminism, and figure out how you feel about it
• Find out What a Feminist Looks Like by watching this great video
• Work for affordable child care through Moms Rising, and learn about other issues too!
• Read the latest about cheerleading and the Title IX debate by my favorite sports writer, Frank Deford

And finally, listen to Sister Joan Chittester on “On Being” talk about how she “backed into feminism.” She shares the following quatrain in answer to the question–

“Mama what’s a feminist?

A feminist my daughter

Is anyone who thinks or dares

To take in charge her own affairs

When men don’t say they oughter.”

—Alice Duer Miller, 1928