101: The Self-Empowered Woman: Julia Gillard

Dear Followers,

Today's post is about Australia's brave and outspoken 27th Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. Born in Wales in 1961, she and her family moved to Australia in 1966 in hopes of improving Julia's respiratory problems (and the family's economic prospects). Like most migrants from the U.K. at that time, they arrived by boat.

Active in student politics studied at the University of Adelaide in 1982 she was elected vice-president of the Australian Union of Students. After moving to Melbourne, she graduated from the University of Melbourne with Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws degrees in 1986.

The decision by the French government to ban religious head coverings has angered many fundementalists, but Gillard has gone even further. Here's the content of her recent speech regarding Islamic immigrants in Australia: "Immigrants, not Australians, must adapt. Take it or leave it. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians.

This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trails and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom.

We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, learn the language!

Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right-wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.

We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us.

This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you to take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, THE RIGHT TO LEAVE.

If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted.

Looking forward to your comments...

100: The Self-Empowered Woman: Xinran

Dear Followers,

Mea Culpa for the long stretch between posts. Part of the reason had to do with the loss of my intern due to class schedule changes, and the rest was simply because life (etc.) got in the way.

At any rate, it's time to continue our look at issues of interest to women, so here we go. As I'm sure you've noticed, I enjoy learning about female-centric developments in other parts of the world. In earlier posts, we've visited Afghanistan, Kenya, Cambodia, Qatar, Zimbabwe, etc. Today's area of note is China.

Xinran is a Chinese broadcaster and writer who could be described as that country's Oprah Winfrey, even though her following came through the radio waves. Her program "Words on the Night Breeze" had millions of listeners in the 1990s, beause in those days fewer Chinese were able to read or own television sets. In 1997, Xinran moved to the U.K., but her writings have given a voice to China's "unheard" women, most of whom were poor.

Her latest book (Message From An Unknown Chinese Mother) deals with the ramifications of the Communist government's one-child policy. Started in 1979, it was an effort to control China's population growth. Xinran tells us, however, that since families could only have one child many parents chose to "get rid of" girl after girl after girl until a boy child arrived.

According to the book, when a child is born the midwife prepares a bowl of warm water. If the baby is a girl it will be called "Killing Trouble Water" and used for drowning, but if it's a boy it's called "Watering The Roots Bath" and will be used to wash the baby.

The baby girls who survive, but are abandoned by their families, are often adopted by childless couples in the West. Xinran has established a charity called Mothers' Bridge of Love to help these unwanted girls.

China is just now discovering the economic ramifications of the accepted belief that "you do not count as a human being unless you have a son." The one-child family rule will result in a Chinese population that - by 2040 - will be older than that of America. And by 2050 nearly one out of every four Chinese will be elderly.

In some areas of China, couples are allowed to have two children only if they married three years later than the average age of the rest of the country or if they waited six years between the first and second births. But because the Chinese work force is shrinking to dangerous levels, the government has decided to employ a number of exemptions. For example, if either the husband or wife is an only child the couple may then have two children. In China, parents who don't qualify and give up their daughters in the hopes that their next baby will be a boy are called "Extra Birth Guerrillas."

Looking forward to your comments...

99: The Self-Empowered Woman: Collins & Gingrich

Dear Followers,

As most of you already know, I'm a huge fan of Gail Collins, who was the first female member of the New York Times' editorial board. In the past, I've shared with you my great admiration for her amazing book "America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines," as well as her more recent best seller "When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present."

Both books are excellent volumes that belong in the library of any reader with an interest in American History or Women's Studies.

Recently, Collins wrote a New York Times editorial about Newt Gingrich's interest in winning the Republican nomination for the 2012 Presidential Election. Her comments were so incisive that I just had to share them (and you might want to forward this blog to other women who know what it's like to be a Starter Wife).

Collins indites politicians (like Angelo Errichetti, Randy Hopper, Carl Kruger, Carl Paladino, Mark Sanford and Elliot Spitzer) who suggest that "hard work and patriotism" can drive them into serial adultery and other "inappropriate choices."

The editorial reminds readers that Gingrich's first wife, Jackie, had once been his high school Math teacher. While she "was recovering from surgery for uterine cancer...her husband walked in [the hospital room] and started talking about the terms of a divorce."

Gingrich's second wife, Marianne, "was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and was visiting her mother when her husband called to tell her there was another woman." Now, Gingrich has told the Christian Broadcasting Network that "he's found true love with Wife No. 3, converted to Catholicism, and 'learned an immense amount.'"

Here's what Collins has to say about his late-life epiphany and his new-found happiness with his latest bride, Callista: "People, can we all agree now that men who spend their early and middle ages betraying women right and left are not allowed to get credit for discovering the joys of monogamy at about the same time they receive their first Social Security check?

"Of course, Gingrich is being a better husband this time around. He's 67! By then, most men have not just finished finished sowing their wild oats. The oats have been harvested, ground up, reprocessed and turned into soggy cornflakes."

Looking forward to your comments...

98: The Self-Empowered Woman: Irena Sendler

Dear Followers,

Usually I learn about my blog subjects from media sources. But my dear friend (and author) Donna Brown Agins, introduced me to the inspiring story of Irena Krzyzanowska Sendler, a Polish Roman Catholic (3. Belief in the Unbelievable) social worker who became known as "the female Oskar Schindler."

Sendler was born in 1910. Her father was a physician who treated many Jewish patients whom other doctors would not treat, and in 1917, he contracted Typhus and died (1. No Paternal Safety Net). His grateful Jewish patients paid for Irena's education; in 1923 she got in trouble in school for defending a Jewish classmate by getting into a fistfight with two bullying girls (5. Life is Not a Popularity Contest).

By 1932, when Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, Sendler had become a social worker caring for unwed mothers and children. Seven years later, the Germans occupied Poland, and Sendler and her helpers began creating 3,000 false documents to help Jewish families escape. This was very risky because helping Jews in German-occupied Poland incurred the death penalty (11 . Risk Addiction).

Her organization, Zegota, had 23 female members and one man. Sendler's code name was Jolanta and she organized the work of smuggling children out of the Warsaw ghetto, where 500,000 Polish Jews lived in a one-square mile area. Since 6,000 people were dying each month from disease and starvation in the walled-off ghetto, Sendler and a colleague were given permission by the Warsaw Epidemic Control Department to enter legally on a daily basis (13. More Than Meets the Eye).

By 1942, "The Final Solution" and death camps had become public knowledge in Poland, so Sendler decided to smuggle out as many babies and children as possible. She would sedate the youngsters so they would remain quiet, and she was able to smuggle them out in packages, boxes and ambulances. They were placed in Catholic convents, parish rectories, and Polish families or the Warsaw orphanage of the Sisters of the Family of Mary. Over 2,500 children were rescued this way (7. Magnificent Obsession).

In 1943, the Gestapo arrested, tortured, and sentenced Sendler to death. Zegota bribed German guards on the way to her execution, and the Germans dumped her (with broken arms, legs and feet) in the woods (12. Hard Times). She lived in hiding as "Klara Dabrowska" for the rest of the war. Unbelievably, when the Soviets took over Poland after the war, she was again tortured because she had supported the Polish government in exile!

During her later years Sendler was honored by Israel, Pope John Paul II, and became the recipient of Poland's Order of White Eagle (the country's highest distinction). She was nominated in 2007 for the Nobel Peace Prize, but lost to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

In spite of her truly brave heroic deeds, she once told an interviewer "We who were rescuing children are not some sort of heroes. That term irritates me greatly. The opposite is true - I continue to have qualms of conscience that I did so little. I could have done more. (10. The Critic Within) This regret will follow me to my death." In 2008, Irena died in a Polish nursing home at the age of 98.

Looking forward to your comments...

97: The Self-Empowered Woman: Borodin and Protopopova

Dear Followers,

Today, instead of focusing on one woman's story, I'd like to introduce you to a man who had a positive effect on countless lives. Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was born November 12 (Yay, Scorpio), 1833 in St. Petersburg, Russia. His mother was the mistress of a Georgian nobleman (Prince Luka Simonis dze Gedevanishvili) and had three illegitimate sons by him, one of whom was Alexander. At that time (and in that culture, "unacknowledged" offspring were given the surname of servants or employees of the nobleman, which is why Alexander's registered father was listed as Porfiry Borodin).

Today, music lovers think of Borodin as a composer (if you've ever heard the song "Stranger in Paradise," which won a posthumous Tony Award in 1954, the credit goes to Borodin). As a child he received a good education, including piano lessons, but his first love was chemistry. He attended the Medico-Surgical Academy (the later home of Ivan Pavlov) and earned a doctorate in medicine with honors in 1856.

When he was 23 years old, he was sent to work at a military hospital, but spent the next five years pursuing his passion for organic chemistry. While doing post-doctorate studies in Heidelberg, he met his future wife, an amateur pianist named Ekaterina Protopopova. Ekaterina was in Heidelberg being treated for tuberculosis, and when she became sicker and moved to Pisa for more treatments, he followed her. They decided to return to Russia and get married, but money problems made them postpone the wedding, Finally, in 1863, when he was 30 years old, they married. Ekaterina's health problems (asthma, etc.) made it difficult for her to tolerate St. Petersburg climate, so she spent long chunks of tine with her relatives in Moscow.

Borodin was a remarkable man for a number of reasons. He spoke French, German, English, Italian and Russian. And, even though he never attended a music conservatory, he played the piano, flute, violin and cello. Some experts in the field feel that he discovered the first link of cholesterol to heart disease 40 years before it was "officially" recognized.

But what I think makes Borodin a real star is that in addition to his work as a "Sunday composer," his interest in chemistry and his work as a doctor, he was a devoted husband who tenderly cared for his ailing wife. AND in addition to all that, he agreed with Ekaterina's belief that women deserved to have equal rights. Unlike most people of his time, he believed that woman deserved equal education, and he was convinced that females would make good doctors.

The life project he was most proud of was the establishment of the St. Petersburg Medical School for Women, which he founded and ran. The last 12 years of his life was spent making sure that women received the proper training to work as physicians side-by-side with their male counterparts

Sadly, Bordin died while dancing at the pre-lenten Maslenitsa festival with friends when he was only 54 years old. His heartbroken wife died five months later. The next time we visit a female MD, let's send a silent thank you to the Russian composer who convinced the world that woman had the skills, the smarts and the right to be physicians.

Looking forward to your comments...

96: The Self-Empowered Woman: Pilgrim Women

Dear Followers,

Five years ago I was one of the millions of American women addicted to Sarah Ban Breathnach's wildly popular book Simple Abundance, which became a massive New York Times best-seller. A week ago, I decided to treat myself to Peace and Plenty, her new book about finding one's path to financial serenity. It was written, in part, to share the story of how she essentially lost her marriage, her money and her home, but learned to come to terms with what money. security and wealth really mean.

Midway through her book I stumbled upon her thoughts about the pilgrims, which reminded me of how much I'd enjoyed Gail Collins' look at Colonial life in her amazing book America's Women. And since all of us have had our share of economic challenges during the recession, I thought it might be worthwhile to remind ourselves what women who came to our shores 391 years ago were experiencing.

First of all, the 19 adult women (18 of whom were married) aboard the Mayflower had made the passage in the company of 83 other passengers. Their trip from England took ten weeks, and after they landed the men went off to explore while the women and children were left on board with a skeleton crew. During this time, one woman (22-year old Dorothy May Bradford) fell overboard to her death; some reports said she "slipped," but others said it was suicide.

A year later, only four women had survived. Here's how Sarah Ban Breathnach writes about these Pilgrim women: "Four very tired women who needed to take care of 50 men and children daily. With the men almost entirely focused on building houses and the village, the women had so many chores, they performed them in shifts. For aside from cleaning and cooking, there was plowing and planting, preserving and putting away, caring for the livestock, making soap and candles, tending the stock and creating herb medicinals...if they didn't drop dead with their hand to the plow or wither away away in a nighttime sweat from a succession of diseases contracted on the voyage, they took it as a sign that God meant for them to go on.

"...Sometimes in life, and today might be one of those days for you, all we can do is put one foot out of bed in the morning, and then in front of the other, literally...I figure if you wake up in the morning, you're meant to go on...All women are endowed with the same spiritual DNA as our Pilgrim mothers - a genetic code of resilience and strength, ingenuity and creativity, perseverance and determination."

Both these gifted authors deserve a standing ovation for reminding us of the Pilgrims who paved the way for us to enjoy the freedoms and opportunities that are the envy of less-fortunate women everywhere.

Looking forward to your comments...

95: The Self-Empowered Woman: Barbara Smith Conrad

Dear Followers,

In 2009, mezzo soprano Barbara Smith Conrad was honored by the Texas legislature in the state Capitol. Hundreds of people stood and honored the woman who had once been at the center of a Texas Civil Rights controversy.

Conrad, who was born Barbara Smith, entered the University of Texas in 1956, which was the first year that African American students were allowed to attend the school. The next year, Conrad (who is African American) was cast in an opera production at the University of Texas (Austin), and was slated to sing opposite a white, male student in a performance of Henry Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas." Outraged segregationists in the Texas legislature threatened to withhold state money from the University, and Conrad's role was subsequently filled by a white student.

Today, 73-year-old Conrad is the subject of a PBS "Independent Lens" documentary titled, "When I Rise," which details this personal and painful story of the racism faced by a talented young, American student five decades ago. When Conrad was selected to play Dido (the Queen of Carthage), many locals were outraged. One white man spat in her face, and she even received death threats (12. Hard Times).

Born in the all-black small town of Center Point, Texas, Conrad grew up with big dreams. She had been inspired by seeing Marian Anderson sing (2. An Early Sense of Direction), and by the importance of church among the members of her community (3. Belief in the Unbelievable).

When Conrad found herself dropped from her school's opera production, the resulting publicity opened doors beyond even her imagination. Harry Belafonte heard about the incident, offered to pay her tuition to any other school she chose, and then told Ms. Conrad, "...let's turn your experience into a triumph." He brought her to New York City and introduced her to powerful people in the performing world (4. Supportive Someone). And former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt sent a check for $5,000, and arranged for the National Urban League to support the young singer.

Conrad -- who admits "I was just that stubborn" -- chose to return to Austin, and graduated in 1959 before returning to New York and playing Bess in a production of "Porgy and Bess" by the Metropolitan Opera. Although she never became as successful as Kathleen Battle or Leontyne Price (who had also been forced to transcend racism), Conrad remained both popular and admired for her talent. She performed in Europe and South America and had contracts with both The Vienna State Opera and The Met. In 1995, she sang for Pope John Paul II in New Jersey (8. Turning No Into Yes).

Today, she lives in a large Upper West Side apartment and gives master classes to other performers. She is the vocal director as well as a founder of Manhattan's Wagner Theater Program.

Looking forward to your comments...