Awesome Women: Linda in Las Vegas

The Awesome Woman of the Day is "Linda in Las Vegas" who, in response to the Susan G. Komen Foundation's now-reversed decision to cut funding to cancer screenings provided by Planned Parenthood, made this video and posted it to YouTube. I can't even imagine how pissed off she must have been, to have done this. Power to you, Linda. All good things and many more years of life to you. Thank you for your courage.

(Contains visually graphic content.)

Awesome Woman: Christine Jorgensen

The Awesome Woman of the Day is Christine Jorgensen (1926 - 1989), the first person whose male-to-female sex reassignment surgery became, in 1952, a mainstream news item. She grew up as George William Jorgensen, Jr., in a blue-collar family in Bronx, New York, living as an uncomfortable child inside a boy's body that, according to some sources, never fully developed into male adulthood.

After Jorgensen did a tour of duty in the Army, she studied and worked in the fields of photography and dentistry. With access to doctors and information when working as a dental assistant, she began taking a form of estrogen. She then made her surgery arrangements through her medical connections and traveled to Denmark where, under the direction of Dr. Christian Hamburger,  the removal of her male genitals was done. (Several years later she had a vaginoplasty when the procedure became available in the U.S.) She chose the name Christine in honor of Dr. Hamburger.

Jorgensen's return the the United States after her first surgery was a major media event in 1953. She stepped off the airplane into an excited sea of cameras and news reporters. Given the tightly defined gender roles of that time, and the prevalence of violent homophobia in our culture, her decision to "go public" -- very public -- was immensely courageous. A common joke going around was that, "She went abroad, and came back a broad." She conducted herself in that press event with incredible grace:




Apparently, Jorgensen's carpenter-contractor father from the Bronx was quite supportive of her and did not withdraw his paternal love -- after her surgery he built a house for her in Long Island. There she met Howard T. Knox, a typist, and in 1959 the two announced their engagement to be married. Sadly, because Jorgensen's birth certificate still said she was male the marriage license was not granted.

Jorgensen used her publicity for more than personal fame, making appearances on talk shows and speaking on college campuses throughout the 1970s and 80s about her experience. In 1970, she sent a telegram to Spiro T. Agnew asking him to apologize for calling one of his adversaries "the Christine Jorgensen of the Republican party." (No apology was forthcoming.) In addition to assuming the role of a public figure on the speaking circuit, Jorgensen worked for years as a stage actress and nightclub entertainer. (A recording of her performance at The Frog Pond restaurant in Hollywood is available in the iTunes Music Store.)

Christine Jorgensen embraced a course of action that was so radical for her time, and by thrusting her story into the public arena she opened a pathway for other queer and gender-queer individuals, and for straight women whose societal role in the 1950s had been reverted from Rosie the Riveter to the demurring housewife and whose place in the scheme of things was as much a prison for many women as sexual mis-assignment was for Jorgensen (and countless others). And perhaps even straight men saw their gender role become more malleable from that point forward -- with the realm of acceptable possibilities for a man's character broadening from the iconic square-jawed image of a dominance and controlled emotions in 1950 into today's stay-at-home dads and Burning Men.

Of course gender and gender roles have never been set in concrete, but it was Christine Jorgensen who had the courage to help us reexamine our belief that they are, and to step out into new territory that allows us to become who we are rather than force ourselves miserably into a mold.

Rehabilitation runs into brick walls, a sad story

Some of the writing in AlterNet is worth reading but whoever writes the stupid sensationalist headlines should be fired. This is not really about "Is AA Too White". This is worth reading.

This about what happens when an individual in recovery, specifically a single mother, gets out of jail and makes a strong effort to pull her life together and wants to get her kids back. This is about a system that is designed to send you right back to jail (that would be the privatized penal system that makes a profit off of your return and not off of your rehabilitation), as a result of problems getting employment and housing. Add to that the ridiculous requirement that you pay back to the state a huge bill that was racked up for "child support" while you were inside.

This is worth reading. This is about a white judge with self-righteous hemorrhoids.

This is worth reading. I hope anyone with influence in hiring at their business or job makes a special effort to seek out ex-cons, especially parents trying to get their kids back, and give them a chance.

This is worth reading. I don't agree with the author's implied premise that 12-step programs are the answer for everyone, IMO from what I've seen every recovery is a different story (and, yes, AA *is* too: White. Middle-Class. Middle-American. Christian. Higher-Power-oriented for it to work for everyone). But, still, this is worth reading.

Is Alcoholics Anonymous Too White?

Dismissing AA as a white-person's movement, many black addicts take a pass on the 12-steps and seek salvation from their church.

Awesome Women: Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia

The Awesome Women of the Day are the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, a shareholder-activist order of Catholic nuns that deliberately invests its pension funds in corporations that need a good talking to. Thus entrance is gained for team members of the order's Corporate Responsibility committee to shareholder meetings and executive offices to protest unfair and greedy practices.

The New York Times recently featured the sisters in a Business section article:

Long before Occupy Wall Street, the Sisters of St. Francis were quietly staging an occupation of their own. In recent years, this Roman Catholic order of 540 or so nuns has become one of the most surprising groups of corporate activists around.

The nuns have gone toe-to-toe with Kroger, the grocery store chain, over farm worker rights; with McDonald’s, over childhood obesity; and with Wells Fargo, over lending practices. They have tried, with mixed success, to exert some moral suasion over Fortune 500 executives, a group not always known for its piety.

... The Sisters of St. Francis are an unusual example of the shareholder activism that has ripped through corporate America since the 1980s. Public pension funds led the way, flexing their financial muscles on issues from investment returns to workplace violence. Then, mutual fund managers charged in, followed by rabble-rousing hedge fund managers who tried to shame companies into replacing their C.E.O.’s, shaking up their boards — anything to bolster the value of their investments.

The nuns have something else in mind: using the investments in their retirement fund to become Wall Street’s moral minority.

The order is comprised of about 540 women who engage in a variety of ministries -- including education, health care, shelter and foreign aid in Africa and Haiti. They own a community farm on one of the last undeveloped tracts of land in Delaware County, PA, on which they grow food for 130 CSA members and the sisters themselves, in keeping with their dedication to sustainability. They have published reports on the SEC's recently issued requirements that energy companies seeking investment for fracking operations disclose all the risks involved, and another two reports on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and the need for BP to be held responsible.

A page on the order's website answers, for those who might be contemplating joining the order, "Who Will I Be?"

As a Sister of St. Francis of Philadelphia, you possess a heartfelt determination to make a difference in the world. You are prepared to live as Jesus did, with a clear vision of God’s care for all creation, loving every man, woman, child, and creature as brother, sister, mother, father, and friend.

 To paraphrase my friend Betty Fokker -- Mammon wept. Jesus smiled.

Awesome Woman: 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.

Awesome Women: 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.

Awesome Woman: Marlene Dietrich

Today's Awesome Woman is Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992) a German-born actress and singer who defied social mores, and who succeeded in reinventing her public self several times over during the course of her long career. She defied the conventional image of how a woman is supposed to dress, becoming one of the talkies' first femme fatales and was a fashion icon. She defied how a woman is supposed to act both in her movie roles and in her personal life (which she managed to keep relatively private). She defied the label "box office poison" after a flop and went on to star in several more successful movies. She defied the public's conception of her as a haughty movie star and rolled up her sleeves to do heavy wartime work during World War II. Then she stepped into a new era of being mostly a highly paid cabaret star from the 1950s through the end of her active career in the 1970s. And after retiring from the public view, Dietrich remained politically active. Marlene Dietrich defied everything except being herself.

Dietrich's first stage appearances were as a chorus girl in vaudeville-style revues in the 1920s. She was bisexual,  and enjoyed the thriving gay scene of the time and drag balls of 1920s Berlin. She married her only husband, Rudolf Sieber, in 1923 and gave birth to her only child, Maria Elisabeth Sieber, in 1924. After some smaller parts on stage musicals and in silent films, her breakout as a star came when she was cast as Lola Lola, a magnetic cabaret singer who brought down a respectable professor, in Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (1930).

The film saw international success and Dietrich moved to Hollywood under a 6-contract deal with Paramount. Her first American film was Morocco. She knew very little English and learned her lines phonetically, but earned the only Oscar nomination of her career. In Morocco she wore a tuxedo and white tie, and kissed a woman. Dietrich was known for cross-dressing and her image had (oddly, considering the times) unquestioned appeal to men and women alike. She once said, "I dress for myself. Not for the image, not for the public, not for the fashion, not for men."

Five more highly successful films were made with Paramount (also under von Sternberg's direction): Dishonored, Shanghai Express, Blonde Venus, The Scarlet Empress, and The Devil is a Woman. After the contract was up, under a different director Dietrich starred in a 1937 film that bombed, resulting in her and many other major stars being labeled as "box office poison." But she revived her stardom and went on to make many more films.

With the ascendancy of the Nazi part in Germany, which Dietrich vehemently opposed, she became an American citizen in 1939. When the United States entered World War II she became the first celebrity to raise war bonds. She toured the U.S. for a year and a half, and it is said she sold more war bonds than any other star. During 1944 and 1945 she made USO tours of Europe, even performing for troops on the front lines, even inside Germany. She sang songs, performed on her musical saw (a skill picked up during her early cabaret years), and entertained the troops with a "mind reading act" that was rife with sexual innuendo and had church groups complaining. She recorded songs for OSS use, recording at least one in German, and actually became a favorite of soldiers on both sides of the war. She also toured the military hospitals to pay personal visits to bring cheer to wounded soldiers.

Dietrich was awarded the Medal of Freedom by the United States in 1947, which she said was her proudest achievement, and the Légion d'honneur by France as well. She had been raised as a Protestant but lost her faith during her wartime experiences, once saying, "If God exists, he needs to review his plan."

From the early 1950s until the mid-1970s, Dietrich worked almost exclusively as a highly-paid cabaret artist, performing live in large theaters in major cities worldwide, working with Burt Bacharach as her arranger and recording albums with him as well.

As for her rich private life through all these decades, as summarized in Wikipedia (be careful, this may make you dizzy):

Throughout her career Dietrich had an unending string of affairs, some short-lived, some lasting decades; they often overlapped and were almost all known to her husband, to whom she was in the habit of passing the love letters of her men, sometimes with biting comments. During the filming of Destry Rides Again, Dietrich started a love affair with co-star Jimmy Stewart, which ended after filming. In 1938, Dietrich met and began a relationship with the writer Erich Maria Remarque, and in 1941, the French actor and military hero Jean Gabin. Their relationship ended in the mid-1940s. She also had an affair with the Cuban-American writer Mercedes de Acosta, who was Greta Garbo's lover. Her last great passion, when she was in her 50s, appears to have been for the actor Yul Brynner, but her love life continued well into her 70s. She counted John Wayne, George Bernard Shaw and John F. Kennedy among her conquests. Dietrich maintained her husband and his mistress first in Europe and later on a ranch in the San Fernando Valley, California.

In her 60s and 70s, Dietrich's health declined, after a bout with cervical cancer and several stage accidents. She was known to be an alcoholic and became dependent on painkillers. But even after retreating to the privacy of her Paris apartment for the final, mostly bedridden, 11 years of her life, she stayed active politically via telephone, including having had conversations with Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. She also stayed in constant contact with her daughter (her husband had died in the 70s), and with biographer David Bret, with whom she had developed a close relationship and who was one of the only people allowed into her apartment. It is believed that Bret was the last person that Dietrich spoke to, two days prior to her death: "I have called to say that I love you, and now I may die."