202: The Self-Empowered Woman: S. Josephine Baker

Dear Followers,

 

When most of us hear the name "Josephine Baker" we think of the exotic cabaret dancer who set Paris on fire decades ago. But I'd like to introduce you to S. Josephine Baker, who changed the face of public health medicine. Born on November 15th, 1873, to a wealthy Quaker family (3: Belief In The Unbelievable), as a young teenager she had planned to accept a scholarship to attend Vassar. But when she was 16, both her brother and her father died of typhoid (1: No Paternal Safety Net), and she decided to pursue a career in medicine (2: An Early Sense of Direction).  

 

Her family did not support her decision to become a physician (17: Dreaming Your Own Dream), but in spite of their skepticism about female doctors, she enrolled in the Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary in 1894. This school had been founded by America's first female doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell, and Baker was able to meet other inspiring women doctors. After her graduation in 1898, she interned at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston. That is where she first understood the connection between poverty and poor health, which became her life-long passion (7: Magnificent Obsession).

 

In 1899, she opened a private practice in New York City, and also worked as a medical examiner for the New York Life Insurance Company. She also worked part-time as a medical inspector for New York City, and by 1907, was made assistant commissioner of health. Dealing with small pox vaccination was part of her responsibility during this time, and she had a major role in identifying "Typhoid Mary," a cook who had unknowingly spread typhoid throughout the city.

 

In 1908, Baker was appointed director of the new Bureau of Child Hygiene, where she developed important public health programs. She started the Little Mothers League, which was a program that helped siblings care for younger brothers and sisters so that mothers could go to work and help support their families. In 1917, she told an interviewer that babies born in The United States faced a higher mortality rate (12%) than American soldiers fighting in French trenches in World War I (2%). During that time 1,500 babies routinely died of diarrhea every week during the summer. That same year she became the first woman to earn a doctorate in public health from NYU (13: More Than Meets The Eye).

 

Baker met with a great deal of resistance, and at one point several dozen Brooklyn doctors petitioned the mayor to shut down her agency. But she was widely credited with saving the lives of 90,000 inner-city children, and soon other cities began to follow her suggestions. By the time she retired from city government (in 1923), all 48 states had a bureau of child health patterned after Baker's (8: Turning No Into Yes).

 

Baker was the driving force behind helping educate inner-city immigrants, distributing formula to infants and milk to children, preventing gonorrhea-created infant blindness, licensing midwives, and placing nurses in schools. Because so many male doctors were hostile (5: Life Is Not A Popularity Contest) to both Baker and her work (she was in charge of supervising a staff that included many dismissive male doctors), she eventually went out of her way to wear clothes that minimized her femininity.

 

Baker died in 1945, and if you'd like to learn more about her contributions to the world of public health, Fighting for Life (her autobiography, originally published in 1939) has just been reissued by New York Review Books.         

 

Looking forward to your comments...

201: The Self-Empowered Woman: Marin Alsop

Dear Followers,

Since September 2007, Marin Alsop has been the 12th music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, which is notable because she is the first woman ever to hold this position with a major American orchestra. Her tenure has been so successful that her contract has been extended through the 2020-2021 season. In 2005, she became the first conductor to ever receive a MacArthur Fellowship "genius grant."

She was born on October 16th, 1956, in New York City to parents who were professional musicians, and began studying the violin when she was a toddler. Her first exposure to sexism came when she was only nine years old, and her father took her to a Young People's Concert that was conducted Leonard Bernstein. She told her parents "That's what I want to be!" (2: An Early Sense of Direction) and they were supportive, but her violin teacher said, "Girls don't do that." Alsop's mother not only insisted that Marin could be anything she wanted to be, she even bought a box full of batons for her daughter the very next day.

Alsop earned her Master's degree in violin from Juilliard, but still dreamt of becoming a conductor (7: Magnificent Obsession). Carl Bamberger, a renowned conductor and music teacher became a mentor as did Leonard Bernstein (4: Supportive Someone),  and in 1984, her orchestra (The Concordia) had it's first concert in New York's Symphony Space. When she took part in a forum on creative leadership at George Washington University, she told students, "Pound and pound and pound at the front door, and while no one's looking, just walk around the side and climb in the window. That's sort of what I did."

A great deal of controversy surrounded her selection as music director of the Baltimore Symphony because many members of the orchestra questioned her abilities (13: More Than Meets The Eye). It was a humiliating situation, but Marin insisted on meeting with the orchestra so she could tell them about her plan and vision. The musicians told her, "You have 110 percent of our support," and after her first performance with them (in September, 2007), the crowd gave her a standing ovations both before and after the orchestra's performance (8: Turning No Into Yes). She has been the music director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz, California since 1992, as well as the principal conductor of the Sao Paolo State Symphony Orchestra.

Marin prides herself on "reinventing" things that are ready for change, including her maestra's jacket. She insisted that her black jacket and trousers be different than those traditionally worn by (male) conductors, and against the advice of others her suits now have "flashes of crimson silk at the collar and cuffs." She has also been criticized for choosing dissonant music that many attendees at Baltimore's Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall find irritating (5: Life is Not A Popularity Contest).

Marin has almost made a habit of taking chances. From creating CSI-inspired concerts to donating 20 percent of her MacArthur prize money to help fund Baltimore's OrchKids children's music program, to sponsoring BSO Academy, which allows fans to sit with the orchestra during rehearsals, eat lunch with the musicians, and attend master classes, she is not afraid to break barriers (11: Risk Addiction).

Marin and her partner, horn player Kristin Jurkscheit, have a ten year old son, Auden, and when asked recently what her "dream life" would look like, she answered, "Aren't I living it now?"

Looking forward to your comments...










 

200: The Self-Empowered Woman: Diana Nyad

Dear Followers,

 

First of all, let me thank all of you for supporting this blog so enthusiastically--this is my 200th posting, and I'm sure that I will never run out of interesting stories about amazing women! 

 

Today, I'd like to celebrate 64 year old marathon swimmer Diana Nyad, who became--after four failed attempts--the first person to ever swim from Cuba to Key West, Florida.  Her father was a stockbroker who died when she was an infant (1: No Paternal Safety Net).  When her mother remarried, Aristotle Nyad adopted her, became her stepfather, and told her that Nyad--in Greek--meant that she would conquer the sea.

 

The family moved from New York City to Fort Lauderdale, Florida and she began swimming seriously in the seventh grade (2: An Early Sense of Direction).  She won three Florida State high school championships in the backstroke, and dreamed of swimming in the 1968 Summer Olympics.  But in 1966, she was forced to spend three months in bed with endocarditis, an infection of the heart.  By the time she was able to start swimming again she had lost her championship speed (12: Hard Times).

 

She entered Emory University, but was expelled for jumping out of a 4th-floor dormitory window while wearing a parachute (11: Risk Addiction).  She then transferred to Lake Forest College in Illinois, where she majored in English and French, played on the tennis team, resumed (distance) swimming, and graduated in 1973.

 

Buck Dawson, who directed the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Florida introduced her to marathon swimming (4: Supportive Someone) and she set a women's world record (four hours and 22 minutes) in her first event (8: Turning No into Yes).  In June 1974, she set a women's record of eight hours 22 minutes in the 22 mile Bay of Naples Race, and the next year (when she was 26) she swam 28 miles around the Island of Manhattan in just under eight hours.  Her first attempt to swim from Havana to Key West (in 1978) was in a shark cage, but ended after 42 hours and 76 miles.  In 1978, she was an honoree of the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame.  In 1979, on her 30th birthday, she set a world record for distance swimming by swimming 102 miles from North Bimini Island, Bahamas to Juno Beach, Florida.  It took her 27 and one-half hours.  She then stopped swimming (14: Selective Disassociation) completely for 30 years.

 

She then began working as a successful sports broadcaster (NPR and CBS) and journalist (Newsweek and The New York Times), and earned over $10,000 for her motivational talks (13: More Than Meets the Eye).  After her mother's death, Nyad couldn't stop thinking about the Cuba to Florida swim, and began training in the Caribbean.  Her August, 2011, September, 2011 and August, 2012 attempts all failed due to asthma, strong currents or dangerous jellyfish stings (7: Magnificent Obsession).  While swimming, she has a mental soundtrack of songs that she sings to herself over and over again (9: Music).

 

To get a better feel of Diane Nyad's personality, watch her two-part interview with Oprah on "Super Soul Sunday" or her TED lecture.  And a Showtime Channel special, "The Other Shore" will be broadcast the first week of November.

 

 

Looking forward to your comments...

199: The Self-Empowered Woman: Jane Franklin Mecom

Dear Followers,




 

In the last post, I recommended a movie that I felt would give all of us something to think about as well as a new perspective. Today, I'd like to recommend a book about a woman whose life has fascinated me for years, the sister of Benjamin Franklin, Jane Mecom.

They grew up in Boston in the early 1700s where they were known in the neighborhood as Benny and Jenny. Their parents had 17 children; he was the youngest boy and she was the youngest girl. We all know how famous and accomplished Benjamin Franklin was--some people have called him "the most interesting public man this country has ever produced." But his sister--like so many women of that era--never left home, married a man who was no great bargain, gave birth to 12 children, struggled with poverty for most of her life, and helped raise her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

I first learned about Jane Mecom from an Op-Ed article in The New York Times written in 2011 by Gail Collins, but when I began to search for more information about her life there wasn't much to be found. Now, Jill Lepore (a professor of American history at Harvard and a staff writer at The New Yorker) has written a lengthy biography about Jane Franklin Mecom that is titled Book of Ages (Knopf, 442 pp, $27.95), which tells us a great deal about the era and as much as possible about this almost-invisible woman. The title comes from a record that Mecom kept about the births and deaths of her children--almost all of whom died before she did, many when they were young and some who had mental illnesses, as well.

Benjamin Franklin cared deeply for his sister and for 63 years sent her many letters, which she kept. He, however, lost most of her correspondence. According to the author, "He loved no one longer...she loved no one better. He wrote more letters to her than he wrote to anyone." Mecom was born in 1712, but no letter written by her before 1758 has survived, which is why Ms. Lepore had such a hard time writing this book. In her words, the "paper trail is miserable scant."

 

It may have been hard for the author to have found specific information about Mecom, but she is able to tell us a great deal about what life was like for women during that era. At that time, Boston's schools did not enroll girls, and while some girls did learn how to read (at home), they were not taught how to write. How different Franklin siblings' lives were--he signed the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Treaty of Paris, while she struggled to write her own name.

 

At 15, she married Edward Mecom, a saddle-maker who frequently fell into debt, and there is no trace that she "ever wrote anything about him at all." In her few letters that have survived, she apologizes for her poor grammar and spelling, and many of her statements are sad ones. For example, "I write among so much noise & confusion that if I had any thing of consequence I could not Recollect it," and "Sorrows roll upon me like the waves of the sea."

 

The good news is that Benjamin Franklin tried to help take care of his sister by sending her books, money, and help finding housing. He did not, however, mention her in his autobiography, and we have no idea where she is buried. For anyone who needs a reminder of how lucky we are to live in a world where women are no longer denied educational opportunities, Book of Ages is a brilliant historical reminder.

 

Looking forward to your comments...

198: The Self-Empowered Woman: Wadjda

Dear Followers,

 

 
 
 
 
 







Today, instead of profiling a Self-Empowered Woman, I'd like to tell you about an inspiring new movie that deserves our support. Wadjda is the first full-length feature film ever made in Saudi Arabia and, more importantly, it's the first film directed by a female Saudi Arabian filmmaker, Haifaa al-Mansour.

As anyone who has watched my YouTube video knows, I'm a great fan of ten year old little girls. And this film tells the story of a ten year old girl who lives in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, who dreams of owning a green bicycle. But in her culture--where women are constrained by custom, family "honor" and Islam--this becomes a complicated and challenging goal. As readers of this blog know, I've often lamented the restrictions placed on women in Saudi Arabia. They are not allowed to drive, are discouraged from being seen in public unless a man is with them, laughing and talking in public is prohibited, travel is only permitted if a male relative allows it, and women are expected to all wear black abayas to maintain or honor chastity. Obviously, for a young girl to ride a bicycle would be considered a threat to her virtue.

 

The movie, which has been applauded by everyone from Gloria Steinem to the Tribeca Film Festival, introduces us to an assertive young girl who wants to find herself and enjoy life. In the photo above, where you can see Wadja's Converse trainers, those shoes serve as a symbol of her independence streak.

 

For al-Mansour to make this film was no easy feat. Because women are not supposed to be outside--and certainly not in positions of authority or power--she would have to stay in a parked van with a monitor and communicate with the film crew via walkie-talkie while filming. And unlike most of the films from the Middle East, this is actually a happy movie.

 

The star, Waad Mohammed, is perfect for the role, but it was challenging to cast an adolescent girl because so many parents were reluctant for their daughters to be in a groundbreaking movie. Fortunately, Mohammed had cooperative parents, wore jeans to the audition, and was able to sing (in English) a Justin Bieber song for the director.

 

What this movie really represents is the lengths that females in Saudi Arabia must take in order to cope with the political structure, protect themselves and invent strategies of subversion. The movie's heroine finds a creative way to blend obedience and rebellion, but the audience knows all too well that the walls of restriction are closing in on her a little bit more every day.

 

A few repressive rules against women have recently been lifted by King Abdullah, who approved the film. For example, women will be able to vote in municipal elections in the year 2015, Saudi female athletes competed in the London Olympics (for the first time), women are now allowed to work on supermarket checkout lines, at lingerie stores, as well as at cosmetic counters. And in July, the authorities announced that women could (finally) ride bicycles but a) they would have to be clothed head-to-toe, b) could only ride in restricted areas, c) bicycles could be used only for recreational activities, and d) riders would have to be accompanied by a male guardian.

 

Obviously, Wadjda's relationship with Abdullah, the little boy who is her friend, will soon be taboo, and she will have bigger problems than trying to find out a way to beat him in a race. But in the meantime, we--and our daughters--need to support this 97-minute movie as a way of saying thank you to Haifaa al-Mansour for both her bravery and her creative approach to a troublesome situation.

 

Looking forward to your comments... 

197: The Self-Empowered Woman: Queen Latifah

Dear Followers,

Queen Latifah has a new afternoon talk show that is already receiving good reviews. Her real name is Dana Elaine Owens, and she was born in East Orange, New Jersey on March 18th, 1970. She chose the name Latifah (which means delicate and very kind) when she was only eight years old  Her mother was a high school art teacher and her father was a police officer; they separated when she was eight, and divorced two years later. As a teenager she was estranged from her father (1: No Paternal Safety Net), but now he helps provide security for Latifah and has worked as her driver. 

Although she was raised in the Baptist church, she attended Catholic school in Newark, New Jersey (3: Belief In The Unbelievable). As a teenager she indulged in some risky and unpalatable behavior--she experimented with drug dealing twice "to see if I could," and at 16, had sex with a 40 year old man (11: Risk Addiction). In high school, she performed the song "Home" from "The Wiz," and soon afterwards began beat-boxing for the hip hop group Ladies Fresh (2: An Early Sense Of Direction). Her first album (All Hail The Queen) was released when she was 19 years old.

As one of the few females in the hip hop world, her albums were enthusiastically supported by her fans. Soon she was appearing on TV sitcoms, and by 1991, she had broken into the movies (Juice, Jungle Fever). She helped her older brother purchase a motorcycle for his 24th birthday, but in 1992 he was killed while riding it. For the next five years, she told an interviewer, she was "...here but not here" (12: Hard Times). She and her mother established the Lancelot H. Owens Foundation in her brother's name to help provide funding for academically gifted but financially underprivileged children.

The 5 foot 10 inch Latifah had breast reduction surgery in 2003, and worked with Jenny Craig's Ideal Size campaign to lose close to ten percent of her body weight (6: Life is Not A Beauty Contest). Her endorsement deal with Cover Girl makeup (the Queen Collection) has been one of the fastest growing lines for ethnic cosmetics.

Latifah once told an interviewer that when young she'd learned that she "had to work harder than the white kids and harder than the boys (10: The Critic Within). Her hard work has insured that Latifah has become a triple-threat talent, excelling in film, music and television. She has earned a Golden Globe Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Image Awards, a Grammy Award, six additional Grammy nominations, an Emmy Award and an Academy Award nomination (13: More Than Meets The Eye). 

Queen Latifah has recorded seven albums, made close to 20 television appearances, and acted in 36 movies so far, and she's only 43 years old!

Looking forward to your comments...

196: The Self-Empowered Woman: Ruth Asawa

 

Dear Followers,

 

On August 6th, the celebrated artist Ruth Aiko Asawa died in San Francisco, and I'd like to share a remarkable life story with you. Born in Norwalk, California on January 24th, 1926, she was the fourth of seven children born to Japanese immigrants who worked as truck farmers in California. They grew seasonal crops--strawberries, carrots, green onions and tomatoes--but were not allowed to become U.S citizens or to own land in California.

In 1935, Asawa's third grade teacher recognized and encouraged her artistic talent, and in 1939 she won a school competition by drawing the Statue of Liberty in a contest designed to represent what it meant to be an American (2: An Early Sense of Direction). As a young girl she attended a Saturday Japanese Cultural School, where she learned calligraphy and Japanese, but whenever she wasn't at school or working on the farm she would draw. Her mother would have her work alone because she was considered "argumentative"  (5:Life is Not A Popularity Contest), but Asawa liked doing chores by herself because she could daydream.

In February of 1942, her father was arrested by FBI agents and in April the rest of the family was interned--first at the Santa Anita Race Track and then to a camp in Rohwer, Arkansas. She did not see her father again until 1948 (1: No Paternal Safety Net). During this time she graduated from high school (where she had been the art editor for the year book), and won a scholarship from the Quakers to Milwaukee State Teachers College to study to be an art teacher. To support herself during this time she worked in a leather tanning factory and as a domestic servant. In 1945, she and her sister traveled to Mexico City to study Spanish and learn more about Mexican art. To get her teaching credentials she was required to practice-teach in a school, but is told that because of the anti-Japanese prejudice there is no position for her and she will not be able to complete her degree (12: Hard Times).

She then decided to finish her education at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where she lived for three years. During that time her mentors included Buckminster Fuller, John Cage, Franz Kline and Josef Albers (4: Supportive Someone). In 1947, she returned to Mexico and learned techniques for crocheting baskets, which for the next decade she used in her wire sculpture experiments.

At this time, she met her future husband Albert Lanier, and they moved to San Francesco where they married even though both of their families disapproved (17: Dreaming Your Own Dream). Their first home was a loft above an onion warehouse. They had six children, and more than their share of financial difficulties. Late at night and in the early mornings while her children slept, Asawa would draw, paint, experiment with paper, and make crocheted wire sculptures. She chose to work at home to be near her children (16: Intensive Motherhood).

Gradually, her work began to be recognized, and by 1966 she had been commissioned to make the fountain at Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco (pictured above). Her popularity grew, and so many commissions followed that she became known as " the fountain lady." Her sculptures are in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Earlier this year one of her pieces sold at  a Christie's auction for $1.4 million (13: More Than Meets The Eye).

Asawa joined several parents to create the Alvarado Arts Workshop by bringing throwaway objects (milk cartons, egg cartons and scrap fabric) and having artists work with the students. And even though her education had been "challenged," she wanted other children to develop as creative thinkers and problem solvers (7: Magnificent Obsession).She organized the Music, Art, Dance, Drama and Science (MADDS) festival, and soon began focusing her energy on building a public high school for the Arts. In 2010, the school was named for her and is now the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts (8: Turning No into Yes).

In 1985, she was diagnosed with Lupus, and spent a year on her recovery (12: Hard Times). Although the illness went into remission, she never totally regained her strength and died at age 87. She has received numerous awards and honorary degrees, and is widely admired for her unique abstract sculptures.

Looking forward to your comments...