174: The Self-Empowered Woman: Rudolph and Robert L. May

Dear Followers,

Sorry to  have not posted a blog during most of December, but--as a good friend just reminded me--the holiday season has a timetable of its own. Now that all the celebrating and socializing have come to an end, I wanted to share a special story with you.

Everyone who knows me is well aware of my fondness for "underdog" stories. I love nothing more than seeing overlooked or underestimated people triumph (13: More Than Meets The Eye).  So when I received this story from my (wonderful) late father-in-law's widow, Helen Willison, I just had to share it with all of you.  Even though the Christmas china had already been packed away and the Season's photos placed in the album, reading this story made everything feel like Christmas Eve all over again.  Hope you enjoy this as much as I did...

 

** True Story of Rudolph**

A man named Robert L. May, depressed and brokenhearted, stared out his drafty apartment window into the chilling December night.

His 4-year-old daughter Barbara sat on his lap quietly sobbing because Bob’s wife, Evelyn, was dying of cancer. Little Barbara couldn't understand why her mommy could never come home. Barbara looked up into her Dad's eyes and asked, "Why isn't Mommy just like everybody else's Mommy?"

Bob's jaw tightened and his eyes welled with tears because her question brought waves of grief, as well as anger. It had been the story of Bob's life. Life always had to be different for Bob. Small when he was a kid, Bob was often bullied by other boys. He was too little at the time to compete in sports, and he was often called names he'd rather not remember. From childhood, Bob was different and never seemed to fit in.

Bob did complete college, married his loving wife, and was grateful to get his job as a copywriter at Montgomery Ward during the Great Depression. Then he was blessed with his little girl, but it was all short-lived. Evelyn's bout with cancer stripped them of all their savings, and now Bob and his little daughter were forced to live in a two-room apartment in the Chicago slums.

Evelyn died just days before Christmas in 1938, and Bob struggled to give hope to his child, for whom he couldn't even afford to buy a Christmas gift. But if he couldn't buy a gift, he was determined a make one – a special storybook!

Bob had created an animal character in his own mind, and he told the animal's story to little Barbara to give her comfort and hope. .Again and again, Bob told the story, embellishing it more with each telling. Who was the character? What was the story all about?

The story that Bob May created was his own autobiography in fable form. The character he created was a misfit, outcast just like he was. The name of the character? A little reindeer named Rudolph, with a big shiny nose. Bob finished the book just in time to give it to his little girl on Christmas Day.

But the story doesn't end there.

The general manager of Montgomery Ward caught wind of the little storybook and offered Bob May a nominal fee to purchase the rights to print the book. The store went on to print, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," and distribute it to children visiting Santa Claus at their locations. By 1946, Wards had printed and distributed more than six million copies of Rudolph. That same year, a major publisher wanted to purchase the rights from Wards to print an updated version of the book.In an unprecedented gesture of kindness, the CEO of Wards returned all rights back to Bob May.

The book became a best seller, and many toy and marketing deals followed. Bob May—now remarried with a growing family—became wealthy from the story he’d created to comfort his grieving daughter.

But the story doesn't end there either.

Bob's brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, made a song adaptation to Rudolph. Though the song was turned down by such popular vocalists as Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore , it was recorded by the singing cowboy, Gene Autry.

"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was released in1949 and became a phenomenal success, selling more records than any other Christmas song, with the exception of "White Christmas."

The gift of love that Bob May created for his daughter so long ago kept on returning back to bless him again and again. And Bob May learned the lesson, just like his dear friend Rudolph, that being different isn't so bad. In fact, being different can be a blessing.

Looking forward to your comments…



173: The Self-Empowerred Woman: Sally Field

Dear Followers,



The new movie "Lincoln" is already receiving a lot of Oscar buzz, and Sally Field's performance as the troubled Mary Todd Lincoln (for which she gained 25 pounds) has been called "unforgettable."  So what better time to take a look at one of Hollywood's legendary Self-Empowered Women?

Sally Field was born in Pasadena, California, on November 6, 1946. Her mother (Margaret Morlan Field) was an actress in B movies, and her father (Richard Dryden Field) was a captain in the U.S. Army. They divorced in 1950 (1: No Paternal Safety Net), and her mother later married actor and stuntman Jock Mahoney.  Her stepfather was volatile (and she was afraid of him), but Sally has credited Mahoney with forcing her to learn how to survive.

Sally described her unsettled childhood to Oprah Winfrey this way: "...we were working class....It was an insecure existence, we lived in the Valley, but one day someone came and took all our stuff away....My stepfather never came to grips with the idea that what you have today might not be here tomorrow."

Sally attended Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, California, where she was a cheerleader.  Her class voted her "Class Clown," and one of her fellow was Michael Ovitz, who later became her agent.  Her career began when, as a teenager she was chosen to star in the TV series "Gidget" (1965-66), which was about a teenage girl who lived alone with her father. Next came "The Flying Nun" (1967-70), which Sally didn't want to do, but her stepfather warned her that if she didn't accept the offer she'd never work again.

During this time, Field sang "The Flying Nun" theme song, and she made it to the Billboard Hot 100 with her single "Felicidad." She also sang on the soundtrack for "The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning" (9: Music). 

In 1968, she married Steven Craig, and they had two sons, Peter and Eli. At this point, Field struggled to break into movies but she had been typecast as merely a "cute" actress.  Talking about her looks, she told Playboy magazine "...I was raised to think that a certain type of woman was sexy and any other kind was not.  It took me a long time to understand that my sense of myself is sexy, and that is doesn't have to be like Jessica Lange's...Jessica is the kind of woman who used to make me feel how unsexy I was.  It took me a long time not to be intimidated by her kind of sexuality" (6: Life is Not a Beauty Pageant).

As an indication of how her "industry" respect has risen, consider that in 1965 she was paid $500 per week for filming Gidget.  For The Flying Nun (1967) she earned $4,500 per episode.  For the 1984 movie Places in the Heart, she earned $1,500,000, and for each episode of Brothers and Sisters , she earned (at least) $100,000 (8: Turning No Into Yes).

When Sally's agent told her that she wasn't "good enough for movies," she fired him, and she also divorced her husband (14: Selective Disassociation).  She got angry that producer after producer wouldn't audition her, so on a dare she auditioned for the bad-girl role in "Stay Hungry," and the rest is history (13: More Than Meets the Eye).  Her list of hit movies spans from Sybil (1976) to Forrest Gump (1994) to this year's Lincoln.  She has won two Academy Awards, three Emmys, two Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress, and been honored at the Cannes Film Festival.  She will be honored by the Palm Springs International Film Festival with its Career Achievement Award January 5, 2013.

She has starred with James Caan, Michael Caine, James Garner, Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Hanks, Mark Harmon,  Paul Newman, Burt Reynolds, Robin Williams and, of course, Daniel Day Lewis.  For years after her first divorce she was romantically involved with Burt Reynolds.  But in 1984, she married film producer Alan Greisman; they had a son, Sam, in 1987, and divorced in 1993 (15: Forget About Prince Charming). 

Just like her character Nora Walker on TV's Brothers and Sisters (2006-11), Sally has been a deeply involved mother, and received the 2012 Human Rights Campaign Ally for Equality Award for her efforts on behalf of gay rights issues.  The presenter was her youngest son, Sam Greisman, who is openly gay.  She once spoke about what loving fathers her two older boys are, and commented: "To raise children who go on to be great parents is an accomplishment--that's the Oscar moment in life" (16: Intensive Motherhood)

Obviously, Sally has cared deeply about the art and craft of acting.  She explained her "You like me" Oscar speech (for 1984's Places in the Heart) by saying "...I'd achieved what I'd always wanted--which was to do good work and have that work be recognized" (7: Magnificent Obsession).

Looking forward to your comments...

172: The Self-Empowered Woman: Malala Yousafzai

Dear Followers,

I hope that everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving Day, whether it was a huge gathering or only a quiet one-day vacation from the normal stresses of modern life. One of the things that I was most thankful for was the fact that I grew up in a country that enabled and encouraged me to enjoy the fruits of an advanced education. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the pretty little girl pictured above.

Malala Yousafzai is the 15 year old Pakistani girl who was shot during an assassination attempt by the Taliban on October ninth of this year. Malala's crime is that she loves going to school and believes that girls are entitled to the same level of education as boys. The fact that she has been vocal about this right has angered the Taliban--a terrorist organization that believes females should not receive an education.

The Taliban has focused its attention on repressing and subjugating women in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Former First Lady Laura Bush wrote an editorial for The Washington Post in which she described their atrocities: "Women were not allowed to work or attend school. Taliban religious police patrolled the streets, beating women who might venture out alone, who were not dressed 'properly' or who dared to laugh out loud. Women could not wear shoes that made too much noise, and their fingernails were ripped out for the 'crime' of wearing nail polish."

Malala's father, Zia Yousafzai, was one of the last teachers in their area (Swat) to stop teaching girls due to pressure from the Taliban. Their family was forced to flee to Abbottabad, the city where Osama Bin Laden was killed last year. He has always supported his daughter's campaign for the rights of all girls to be educated.

Malala is well known in Pakistan because she wrote a blog protesting what the Taliban had done in Swat. That blog became part of the BBC's Urdu-language service, and readers around the world read an eleven year old girl's first-person story about hiding school books under her scarf and being afraid to wear a school uniform. She later became the focus of several media documentaries by The New York Times. In 2011, she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize, and she won Pakistan's first National Youth Peace Prize.

The attack happened on a Tuesday afternoon when Malala and her 15 classmates were riding home in a small school bus. A masked gunman boarded the bus, asked for Malala by name, and then shot her in the head and neck. She was air-lifted from Pakistan to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England for extensive surgical care. Experts expect her recovery to include surgeries, rehabilitation and counseling that could last for years. Her family remains at her bedside, and--for once--the Taliban has inadvertently given the world a modern-day heroine whom some are comparing to a Middle Eastern Anne Frank.

Later this month, Taliban members plan to gather at Islamabad's notorious Red Mosque, where Malala will be denounced as an apostate who has turned her back on Islam. She and her family have already received death threats, even before this latest "fatwa" was planned.

Looking forward to your comments...

171: The Self-Empowered Woman: Rachel Carson

Dear Followers:

The next time you shop at Whole Foods and/or buy organic produce, you'll be honoring the legacy of the woman pictured above, Rachel Carson.  Born in 1907, in Spingdale, Pennsylvania, she was a shy (but brilliant) nature advocate and award winning author.

She grew up on a small (65 acres) family farm, and spent much of her childhood exploring the outdoors.  An avid reader, she wrote her first animal story when she was eight years old, and her first story was published when she was eleven (2: An Early Sense of Direction).

Carson graduated from high school at the top of her class of 45 students, and enrolled at the Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham University) where she first majored in English, but later switched to Biology.  In 1929, she graduated magna cum laude (10: The Critic Within).

Financial pressures plagued her, and she had to postpone attending Johns Hopkins University because she didn't have enough money.  When she finally was able to attend graduate school, she was only able to be a part-time student because she had to work to earn money for tuition.  She received her master's in Zoology in 1932, and had planned to work on her doctorate, but had to look for a full-time teaching position to help support her family.  In 1935, her father died suddenly and Carson had to care for her aging mother (1: No Paternal Safety Net).

She took a temporary job with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, and was responsible for writing radio copy about aquatic life and fish biology.  In order to be eligible for the first full-time position within the bureau, she sat for the civil service exam and outscored all the other applicants.  In 1936, she became only the second woman to be hired for a full-time position by the Bureau of Fisheries (13: More Than Meets the Eye).

Money remained an issue when, in 1937, her older sister died--this meant Carson was responsible for her mother and her two nieces.  To augment her salary, Carson wrote articles for newspapers and magazines. One of those articles turned into her first book, Under the Sea Wind, which was published in 1941.

Although she wouldn't publish anything about DDT until 1962, she began studying the effects of the "insect bomb" in 1945.  Her second book, The Sea Around Us, became a huge hit--it was on the New York Times best seller list for 86 weeks, and won the 1952 National Book Award for Nonfiction.

In 1957, one of the nieces she had cared for in the 1940s died at the age of 31, leaving a five year old orphaned son.  Carson adopted the little boy while continuing to care for her mother.

In 1957, the U.S.D.A. began a "fire ant eradication program," which involved aerial spraying of DDT and other pesticides mixed with fuel oils.  At the same time, the "Great Cranberry Scandal" was the result of toxic herbicides ruining the 1957, 1958 and 1959 crops of American cranberries.  Carson argued that pesticides were really "biocides" because they affected entire Eco systems. 

Carson knew that her findings were based "on an unshakable foundation," but she was also aware that powerful forces would demonize her.  Friends warned her that she was playing with fire, but (in her words) "Knowing what I do, there would be no future peace for me if I kept silent" (11: Risk Addiction).

When Silent Spring was published in 1962, there was strong opposition from DuPont and other chemical manufacturers.  The former Secretary of Agriculture wrote a letter to Dwight D. Eisenhower suggesting that Carson was "probably a communist"  (5:Life is Not a Popularity Contest).  In spite of all her critics, President John F. Kennedy appointed a committee to study the effects of pesticides. 

As if Carson did not have enough struggles with her family obligations and her controversial scientific findings, she also faced a barrage of medical issues.  She had an ulcer, pneumonia, a staph infection, and phlebitis in her legs as well as two tumors in her left breast--one of which was malignant and spread to her lymph nodes and her liver (12: Hard Times).

By 1970, the Federal Government created the Environmental Protection Agency, and ten years later she was given (posthumously) the Presidential Medal of Freedom (8: Turning No Into Yes).  She died in 1964, when she was only 56 years old.

2007 was the centennial of Carson's birth, and Democratic Senator Benjamin Cardin of Maryland planned to submit a resolution honoring her "legacy of scientific rigor coupled with poetic sensibility."  The resolution was blocked by Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma who said "The junk science and stigma surrounding DDT--the cheapest and most effective insecticide on the planet--have finally been jettisoned."

Looking forward to your comments...

170: The Self-Empowered Woman: Daniele Delpeuch

Dear Followers,


Last month the Weinstein company bought the American rights to a French film that is receiving a lot of attention on the other side of the Atlantic. Titled "Les Saveurs du Palais" ("The Tastes of the Palace" in French, but movie titled "Haute Cuisine" in English), it is based on the story of the first female chef to work in the Elysee Palace, and prepare food for French President Francois Mitterand.

Today, Daniele Delpeuch is 70 years old, and enjoying a new sense of recognition for her groundbreaking role as the first female chef to work in the Palace kitchen. Although she is considered to be an authority on the cuisine of the Perigord, she was actually born in Paris. But her father died when she was twelve years old (1: No Paternal Safety Net), and she moved with her mother to live on her grandmother's farm in a 700-year old stone farmhouse.

Her grandmother's way of life introduced her to the value of fresh, hearty, simple French cuisine (2: An Early Sense of Direction), and by the time Delpeuch was 25 years old, she was married and the mother of four children. In 1974, she began working at the farm where her skill in the kitchen attracted foodies and American tourists to visit, eat and stay. After becoming the supplier to a number of  famous French chefs, she became famous for her foie gras. She worked so hard to revive the near-extinct industry that she became known as "the queen of foie gras" (7: Magnificent Obsession).

Soon after she opened the first cooking school in the Perigord, travelled to the US to teach cooking classes, became friends with Julia Child, and even lived for a short while in Paris. By 1980, the French agricultural industry (no doubt impressed by her rich harvest of truffles from the farm's acres of oak trees) awarded her Chevalier du Merite Agricole, its highest honor. She was one of only a handful of women to receive the decoration (13: More Than Meets the Eye).

One of  the chefs who had purchased her foie gras for years recommended her for the job of personal chef for President Mitterand, who had asked his Culture Minister to find someone who could prepare dishes the way his grandmother had. At the time, Delpeuch was divorced (15: Forget About Prince Charming), and her children were grown, so she decided to take the chance, move to 55 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore in Paris, and go to work in the Palace's kitchen (11: Risk Addiction).

The other (all-male) chefs were not welcoming. When the kitchen staff had their first (and only) lunch together they made fun of her, in part because of her "no frills" food and in part because of her gender. They gave her nicknames like "Countess du Barry" (who had been the favorite mistress of King Louis XV), and "Mamie Nova" (a brand of dairy products whose logo is a grandmother) (5: Life Is Not A Popularity Contest).

Delpeuch singlemindedly focused all her attention on keeping the President's taste buds happy (10: The Critic Within), but in the process alienated a lot of people. Some even referred to her as "a self-righteous Joan of Arc of the kitchen," because she ignored the nutritionists hired by the Presidents doctor, insisted on buying ingredients from her own suppliers, and often went over budget.

After working for the President for two years, Delpeuch had had enough of her hostile kitchen environment, and resigned. In her words "I turned the page quickly" (14: Selective Disassociation). Her next adventure was to move to the Antarctica, where she worked as a cook for 60 people at a French scientific research station. She was very well paid, but food deliveries were only made once every four months.

Since her departure, she has written a cookbook and is enjoying her new found fame on the big screen. She still bristles at the idea that the French, in general, expect cooking in the home to be done by a woman, but consider male chefs to be "artists of the kitchen." Unfortunately, Palace chefs are still male, but--after all--French women didn't receive the right to vote until 1944.

Looking forward to your comments...

169: The Self-Empowered Woman: Elizabeth Warren

Dear Followers,

The picture above was taken on September 5th at this year's Democratic National Convention, when Elizabeth Warren spoke just before Bill Clinton delivered his 48-minute speech. She told the audience that this was the first National Convention she had ever attended, and that she'd never dreamed that she would be the "opening act" for President Clinton (13: More Than Meets The Eye).

Elizabeth Warren is receiving a lot of attention these days because she is in the middle of a tight Massachusetts Senatorial campaign against Senator Scott Brown. She hopes to unseat him for the office that was held for so many years by Senator Ted Kennedy.

Warren was actually born in Oklahoma, and during her speech she spoke poignantly of her family's life "on the ragged edges of the middle class." She had three older brothers, and her family never seemed to enjoy any sense of financial security. Her father had been a self-taught pilot who worked as a civilian instructor during World War II, but after the war he lost his life savings to a business partner in a car dealership.

 The bad luck continued and when Elizabeth was twelve years old, her father (who then worked as a janitor) had a heart attack, which changed everything--for the worse--for the entire family. It's a story--much like Starbucks' Howard Schultz's life story--about how one unexpected medical event can have a long-lasting negative ripple effect on an otherwise productive (if struggling) family.

Warren's father was unable to work the same hours he had before the heart attack, so his salary was cut (1: No Paternal Safety Net). When the medical bills were added to his pay cut, the family lost its air-conditioned bronze Oldsmobile, used an old off-white Studebaker instead, and Warren's mother became a telephone catalogue order employee at Sears. Those (and other) sudden lifestyle changes were the only way for them to hold onto the family home.

Warren's family (like most of their community) was deeply religious, and her mother taught Sunday school at the local Methodist Church (3: Belief In The Unbelievable).

To this day, Warren remembers the discomfort she felt because her family was so much less financially secure than her classmates'. That sense of financial worry (i.e., the fear of not having enough) left a deep impact on her value system. As one observer noted, "...money has, in her mind, always been much more than dollar bills. It has been shorthand for security, acceptance, and family stability" (2: An Early Sense Of Direction).

Fortunately, Warren managed to channel her energies into scholastic achievement, and she even skipped sixth grade (10: The Critic Within), which made her a year younger then her other classmates. She brought the same sense of discipline and achievement to the debate team, and by the age of 16 had been named "Oklahoma's top high-school debater." Her hard work paid off when she won a full debate-team scholarship to George Washington University.

She only attended GWU for two years before marrying, and transferring (with her husband) to the University of Houston. By 1970 she had graduated with a degree in speech pathology and audiology, and worked with children with disabilities. The next move was to New Jersey (for her husband's work), and a two-year stint as a stay-at-home mom. In 1976 she received a J.D. from Rutgers School of Law, Newark, and then she began to teach law. She and Jim Warren--the parents of Amelia and Alexander--divorced in 1978 (15: Forget About Prince Charming).

In 1980, Elizabeth married Harvard Law professor Bruce Mann, and continued teaching at various universities. She has lived in (or been on the faculty of schools in) Oklahoma, Texas, New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Washington, DC (14: Selective Disassociation).

Warren has devoted her professional career to the concept of economic inclusion, and has written several books on the subject as well as serving on a variety of commissions that focus on financial issues (7: Magnificent Obsession). Her commitment to protecting consumers has ruffled feathers among financial institutions and several Republican members of Congress who feel that she is engaging in "class warfare" (5: Life Is Not A Popularity Contest). Below is an excerpt from her most famous pro-middle class speech:

"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own--nobody....You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless--keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."

Looking forward to your comments...

168: The Self-Empowered Woman: The Glass Ceiling

Dear Followers,

Stephanie Coontz recently wrote an article in The New York Times about the "Myth of the Male Decline," which argued that a variety of new "females today have all the power" books (with titles like The Richer Sex and The End of Men) are both misguided and misleading. Below are some of the arguments she makes regarding "the glass ceiling" and financial (i.e., professional) progress for women in America today:

• Women make up only 17 percent of Congress.
• Women make up almost 40 percent of full-time management workers, but the median wage of female managers is only 73 percent of what male managers earn.
• Only 4 percent of the CEOs in Fortune's top 1,000 companies are female.
• As of this June, men had regained 46.2 percent of the jobs they lost in the recession, but for women that number was 38.7 percent
• The percentage of female electrical engineers doubled in each decade during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. But since 1990, it has increased by only a single percentage point, meaning women comprised only 10 percent of the total.
• Gender segregation in any field means that as occupations gain a higher percentage of female workers the pay for these jobs goes down relative to wages in similarly skilled jobs dominated by males. 
• Coontz argues that it's important to remember that earning more than a man with less education is not the same as earning as much as an equally educated man.
• Never-married childless 22 to 30 year old metropolitan area working women (with the same educational credentials as men earn less in every category according to a Boston University study.
• A 2010 Catalyst study found that female MBAs (on average) were paid $4,600 less than men in starting salaries, and continue to be outpaced by men in rank and salary growth throughout their careers even if they remain childless.
• The wife earns half or more of the family income in only 20 percent of all married-couple families.
• In 35 percent of marriages the wife earns less than 10 percent.
• Educationally, women today earn almost 60 percent of college degrees, up from about 30 percent in 1960.
• Among families in the top 25 percent of earnings distribution, women lead men by 13 percent in graduation rates, but among the lowest-income families women have only a 2 percent advantage.
• Between 1970 and 1985, women's share of computer and information science degrees rose from 14 percent to 37 percent. But by 2008, women had fallen back to only 18 percent.
• Women get a smaller payoff then men for earning a high school degree, but a bigger payoff for completing college.
• A Pew Research Center 2011 poll revealed that 77 percent of Americans now believe that a college education is necessary for a woman to get ahead in life today, but only 68 percent think this is true for men.
• Today, men account for only 2 percent of kindergarten and preschool teachers, 3 percent of dental assistants and 9 percent of registered nurses.

Looking forward to your comments...