Women’s Equality Day

August 26, 2008 at 3:09 am (USA)
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“Susan B. Anthony is not on trial; the United States is on trial.”

– Matilda Joslyn Gage

Susan B. Anthony

Susan B. Anthony

Women’s Equality Day celebrates the anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment on August 26, 1920. The amendment gave American women the long-fought-for right to vote. One of the most vocal and influential activists for women’s suffrage was Susan B. Anthony. In fact, in Massachusetts it’s Susan B. Anthony Day today, in honor of the famed activist, human rights defender, and convicted felon.

That’s right. Susan B. Anthony was arrested on November 18, 1872 for voting in the November 5 presidential election, “without having a lawful right to vote and in violation of section 19 of an act of Congress.”

In order to prevent damage to her reputation, Commissioner Storrs sent word to Anthony, requesting that she come down to his office. Anthony responded saying she “had no social acquaintance with him and didn’t wish to call on him.” The Commissioner was forced to send a deputy marshal to Anthony’s residence in Rochester, New York. She later recalled:

“He sat down. He said it was pleasant weather. He hemmed and hawed and finally said Mr. Storrs wanted to see me… ‘what for?’ I asked. ‘To arrest you.’ said he. ‘Is that the way you arrest men?’ ‘No.’ Then I demanded that I should be arrested properly.”

Anthony refused to pay bail. The case made national headlines, and letters flooded in. To her dismay, Anthony’s lawyer did pay her bail without her knowledge, explaining “I could not see a lady I respected put in jail.” (This however, later ruined her chance of bringing the case to the Supreme Court.)

Anthony’s lawyer argued—as Anthony had done herself outside of court—that the wording of the 14th Amendment gave all citizens of the United States the right to vote. After a lengthy trial, covered daily in the national press, and at which Anthony herself was not allowed to testify, the judge announced: “The Fourteenth Amendment gives no right to a woman to vote, and the voting by Miss Anthony was in violation of the law…Upon this evidence I supposed there is no question for the jury and the jury should be directed to find a verdict of guilty.”

The judge pronounced her guilty without ever calling on the jury to deliberate.

Before sentencing, the judge asked Anthony: “Has the prisoner anything to say why sentence shall not be pronounced?”

Not one to make waves, Anthony told the judge:

“Yes, your honor, I have many things to say; for in your ordered verdict of guilty, you have trampled under foot every vital principle of our government…May it please the Court to remember that since the day of my arrest last November, this is the first time that either myself or any person of my disfranchised class has been allowed a word of defense before judge or jury…All of my prosecutors, from the eighth ward corner grocery politician who entered the complaint, to the United States Marshal, Commissioner, District Attorney, District Judge, your honor on the bench, not one is my peer, but each and all are my political sovereigns; and had your honor submitted my case to the jury, as was clearly your duty, even then I should have had just cause of protest, for not one of those men was peer; but, native or foreign born, white or black, rich or poor, educated or ignorant, awake or asleep, sober or drunk, each and every man of them was my political superior; hence in no sense, my peer.”

Anthony continued for some time, ignoring the judge’s orders for silence. Finally the judge ordered Anthony to pay $100 and the costs of prosecution. Anthony simply said:

May it please your honor, I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty. All the stock in trade I possess is a $10,000 debt, incurred by publishing my paper–The Revolution–four years ago, the sole object of which was to educate all women to do precisely as I have done, rebel against your manmade, unjust, unconstitutional forms of law, that tax, fine, imprison and hang women, while they deny them the right of representation in the government…And I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all women to the practical recognition of the old revolutionary maxim, that ‘Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.’

She never paid the fine.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, she voted Republican.

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Women’s Day - Tunisia

August 13, 2008 at 3:46 am (Tunisia)
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Women’s Day in Tunisia isn’t celebrated on March 8th like much of the rest of the world, but on August 13, in commemoration of the Tunisian Code of Personal Status, enacted on this day in 1956.

The Code and the principles it endorsed sent shock waves across the Islamic world when it was created. Among other things, the Code established judicial divorce proceedings, gave women the right to request divorce, set the minimum age for marriage at 17, abolished polygamy, regulated alimony payments, improved women’s standing in child custody proceedings and inheritance matters, and reduced gender inequality in general.

The Code of Personal Status was one of the first major legislative actions of the new government. Tunisia had only gained independence from France in March of that year. 

It’s been said, the Code differs from women’s rights legislation in other nations in that, though supported by active women’s groups such as the National Union of Tunisian Women, the Code was not a reaction to a widespread grass-roots movement, but an action of a reformist government in a recently-independent nation with the purpose of modernizing Tunisian societal structure to enable Tunisia to compete in an industrialized, post-war world.

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Women’s Day - South Africa

August 9, 2008 at 4:41 am (Africa, South Africa)
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South Africa’s Women’s Day recalls the 20,000 woman-strong march in Pretoria on this day in 1956.

The marchers protested amendments to the Urban Areas Act, which, among other things, reserved urban living spaces for white South Africans, and required black men in cities and towns to carry special passes with them at all times or be subject to arrest. Originally enacted in 1923, the Pass Laws were expanded in the 1950s to require all black South Africans over 16 to carry the pass. Bearers had to have their passes approved each month by their employer–employers who, by South African law, could only be white.

As a gesture of unity against apartheid, tens of thousands of black South African women converged on the Union Buildings in Pretoria, the seat of the South African government, and delivered a petition with 100,000 signatures to the Prime Minister’s door.

The Pass Laws were not repealed until 30 more years of struggle, protest, and bloodshead.

Years later, the song chanted by the women that day, Wathint’ abafazi, wathint imbokodo” (”When you touch a woman, you strike a rock”), has become the motto of the women’s movement in South Africa and continues to be a symbol of women’s strength against racism and sexism.

Women’s anti-Pass Law Campaigns in South Africa

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International Women’s Day

March 8, 2008 at 6:48 am (International)
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One hundred years ago today 15,000 women in New York City came together to march for better working conditions and universal women’s suffrage.

 

The following year the Socialist Party of America declared February 28 to be National Women’s Day. In Copenhagen in 1910 an International Women’s Day was proposed and unanimously agreed upon by 100 women representing 17 countries. It would be observed simultaneously by women around the world.

 

The first official International Women’s Day was observed on March 8, 1911. Over a million people celebrated in countries including Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Denmark.

 

That same month the devastating Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York City killed over 140 woman workers, mostly poor immigrants, and propelled the appalling working conditions of woman laborers to the forefront of national politics.

 

Russia, which was still on the Julian Calendar, celebrated Women’s Day on February 23 to observe the holiday concurrently with the rest of the world. On February 23, 1917 thousands of women demonstrated in St. Petersburg, Russia, demanding Food for our Children, and for the return of their husbands and sons from the war. The Women’s Day march led to further demonstrations, and the abolishment of the centuries-old Czardom of Russia four days later.

 

Today, a century after 15,000 women banded together on the streets of New York, International Women’s Day is one of the most widely-celebrated secular holidays in the world.

 

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Mothers Day - Georgia

March 3, 2008 at 2:34 am (Georgia, Russia)
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Today is Mother’s Day in Georgia — the country, not the state.

 

Perhaps the most famous of all Georgian mothers was Katerina Geladze Djugashvili. 

 

Katerina Geladze 

(Katerina Geladze) 

 

The daughter of serfs, Katerina married at age 17. She had two children—Mikhail and Georgi—who died as babies, before her third, Josef, was born. A devout Christian, Katerina made a vow to God. If this boy would survive, he would become a servant of the Lord.

 

Soso, as she called him—did live, but was often ill. Katerina nursed him to health through small pox, endless colds and coughs, and a case of blood poisoning that left one of his arms permanently injured. 

 

Soso’s father was a drunk who habitually abused his wife and son. The most merciful thing he did was to walk out on them to get a job at a shoe factory in the city, where he eventually drank himself to death.

 

young stalin 

(Young Soso) 

 

Katerina worked as a laundress and servant to raise money for her son to attend the Gori Parochial School. Though other boys picked on him for his ragged clothes, pockmarked face and hick accent, the boy graduated at the top of his class, and was accepted to the prestigious Tiflis Theological Seminary.

 

“To the Most Reverend Archemandrite Seraphim, Rector and Father,” wrote the boy… 

 

Having completed my studies at the Gori Church School as the best student, with the permission of Your Reverence I presumed to take the entrance examination for the Tiflis Theological Seminary even though I do not have the money to continue my studies. I was fortunate to be successful in this examination and was admitted among the students of the Theological Seminary. However, since my parents are unable to provide for me in Tiflis I am appealing with great humility to Your Reverence to admit me among those students who have half their tuition fees paid for them. I presume to mention here that throughout my studies at the Gori Church School I received assistance from the school funds. - Josef Djugashvili, October 1894 

Soso sang in the school choir, read voraciously, and began writing poetry:

 

 

“To the Moon”

 

Move on, O tireless one–

Never bowing your head,

Scatter the misty clouds,

Great is the providence of the Almighty

Smile tenderly upon the earth

Which lies outspread beneath you;

Sing a lullaby to Mkhinvari*

Strung down from the heavens.

And know that he who fell like ashes to the earth,

Who long ago became enslaved,

Will rise again higher than the holy mountain

Wing with bright hope

And as in former days

O beauty, you shone among the heavens

So now let your rays play in splendor

In the blue sky

I shall rip open my shirt

And bare my breast to the moon,

And with outstretched hands

Worship her who showers her light on the world.

Young Soso

 

 

(*Georgian name for Mount Kazbek in the Caucus Mountains, believed to be the spot where Zeus chained Prometheus for stealing fire from the gods.)

 

It was Soso’s appetite for reading that got him expelled just before graduation. He was caught with banned literature, including works by Darwin and Victor Hugo. His mother’s dreams were dashed to pieces.

 

Many years later, after Josef changed his last name to Stalin (much easier to pronounce than Djugashvili) he tried to explain to his mother what he did—leaving out all that paranoid, mass-murdering, genocidal dictator stuff. He was the leader, not of Georgia, but of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The single most power person in the world.

 

Katerina simply said—like any good mother—she was disappointed he never became a priest.

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Lupercalia

February 15, 2008 at 7:48 am (Pagan, Roman)
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It’s Lupercalia time, baby

 

On this day the ancient Romans remembered the She-wolf who suckled the baby Romulus—the future founder of Rome–and his brother Remus. 

 

The priests of Rome, known as the Luperci, or ”Brotherhood of the Wolf,’ would commemorate this day by running around in loincloths smacking women on the back with an animal-skins.

 

What is immediately apparent in a comparison between the sacred rites of then and now is that then it was much more fun being a priest.

 

The ritual was intended to promote fertility, and the part about whipping girls legs is still practiced on Easter Monday in parts of Eastern Europe.

 

It is said that over time this festival of the Romans was superseded by the Purification of the Virgin and the Festival of Saint Valentine. 

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the 1st of February belongs to Brigid…

February 1, 2008 at 6:43 pm (Celtic, Europe, Pagan, cross-quarter days)
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Brigid was a Celtic goddess whose festival was celebrated on February 1st and 2nd. Brigid’s Day, or Imbolc, heralded the middle of Winter and anticipated the coming of Spring. It was a festival of purification. (The word February itself comes from the Latin Februus, the god of purification and the dead.)

 

Brigid's 3 incarnations

(3 incarnations of Brigid)

 

The Catholic church has been at odds with Brigid’s legacy for most of its existence. The bishops of Ireland found the goddess’s pagan following to be too deeply embedded in local tradition to be stomped out. Even the newly-converted Irish Christians refused to stop worshipping their exalted patroness. The Church decreed, If you can’t win ‘em, join ‘em. Brigid became Saint Brigid.

 

Over the centuries two Brigids emerged. One Brigid was transformed into Mary’s “midwife” at the birth of Jesus. (The position of Jesus’s mother was taken.)

 

In the other the she became the daughter of a Druid father ( and in some stories of a Christian mother from Portugal kidnapped by pirates!) and was named after the Celtic goddess. She lived from 451 to 525. She was known for her generosity as a young woman, and devoted herself to God, deflecting proposal after proposal from eligible suitors. She was baptized by St. Patrick himself and became a devout nun and Abbess, eventually founding the Abbey at Kildare in the 5th century.

 

In the Celtic tradition the Abbey at Kildare is believed to have preceded the so-called Saint herself. It was an ancient shrine to the Goddess before Christianity ever reached the Emerald Isle. There priestesses kept alight an eternal flame at the shrine until the 1220s when a Bishop, angered by the Abbess’s ‘no men allowed’ policy and the Druidic rituals, ordered the sacred flame to be put out.

 

The last insult to Brigid was her expulsion from the list of Saints in the 1960s. During Vatican II she was decanonized due to insufficient proof of her existence, after volumes of creative embellishment written about the supposed nun’s life and deeds over the centuries.

Brigid is affiliated with wisdom, healing, metal-work or craftmanship, flames and fire, and childbirth, even though she was a virgin in the Christian tradition.

 

In The Goddess Path: Myths, Invocations & Rituals Patricia Monaghan writes:

 

“When we face the possible end of a relationship, when our bills are higher than the tiny resources we have, when we are emotionally drained by negative working conditions–it is all too easy to cling to what we have known previously…Brigid tells us otherwise…transformation is the only way to survive.“

 

Likewise Imbolc is the transformation of winter into spring.

 

“…the day on which you assume a new name; the day on which you pledge to make specific changes in your life. [Imbolc] could be thought of as a kind of goddess-specific New Year’s Eve.“

 

 

In writing of St. Brigid, the Catholic Patroness of Ireland, (1907) Joseph Knowles notes:

 

“St. Brigid received from her people a worship which history accords no other saint…She was the light that shone over their Island to direct the footsteps of the daughters of Erin in the paths of virtue and sanctity. In speaking of her they discarded the prefix Saint, and called her, in homely, yet reverent fashion, “Mo Brighe”–or “My Bride.“

 

Note how Knowles reverses the carry-over from Brigid’s pre-Christian goddesship.

 

In the British Isles Brigid’s Feast and Imbolc merged with Candlemas. Both involves the ancient druidic lighting ceremony and purification rites, originally meant to honor Brigid. Some calendars list February 1 as Imbolc, others February 2. Most likely the celebration began on the evening of February 1 and concluded the following day, as was the tradition of the time.

 

On Brigid’s Day, Selena Fox, author of Lore and Riutals recommends:

 

“Do a self purification rite with Elemental tools–

cleanse your body with salt (Earth)

your thoughts with incense (Air)

your will with a candle flame (Fire)

your emotions with water (Water)

and your spiritual body with a healing crystal (Spirit)

Bless candles that you will be using for rituals throughout the year.

Invoke Brigid for creative inspiration.

Take a Nature walk and look for the first signs of Spring.”

 

One ritual of Brigid’s Day was to plant or hang straw cross from the previous year’s harvest around the outside of the house and in the rafters in honor of the goddess of flame, to protect the house from fire. “An odd gesture,” writes Patricia Monaghan, “for a collection of old straw ornaments in the attic seems to encourage, rather than prevent, house fires.”

 

Brigid and her Cross

(Brigid’s Cross)

 

 

On Imbolc 1993 the Brigidine Sisters of Ireland relit the Kildare flame.

 

 

Brigid resources:

 

Brigid: the Goddess Who Wouldn’t Die

Brigid: the Survival of a Goddess

St. Brigid

Brigit or St. Brigid?

Brigid of the Celts

Brigit the Exalted One

Imbolc

Brigid’s Day Celebration

Brigid’s Day Foods

Imbolic Customs and Lore

 

 

 

 

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Women’s Heart Disease Awareness Day

February 1, 2008 at 7:30 am (International)
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Today’s Wear Red Day, but it’s not a fashion statement. It’s a life statement: to build awareness of women’s heart disease.

 

Today women are at greater risk of fatal heart attack than men.

Each year more women die of cardiovascular disease than cancer, tuberculosis, AIDS, and malaria combined. While mortality rates for men have gone down, the danger for women has risen. Around the world 16 women die of cardiovascular illness every minute.

 

Recognizing the early symptoms of a heart attack is essential in saving lives. Women rush their husband or male family members to the hospital, but tend to be more dismissive of the same warning signs in themselves.

 

Sweats, heart palpitations, shortness of breath–

Could be more than menopause.

 

The “Hollywood Heart Attack” in which someone clutches their chest in pain is not the standard for everyone. Chest pain is the most common symptom, but almost half of all women who experience a heart attack do not have chest pain. Atypical symptoms include:

 

  • back, neck or jaw pain
  • nausea or vomiting
  • indigestion
  • weakness, fatigue
  • dizziness, lightheadedness

 

Symptoms that can occur months prior to a heart attack include:

 

  • fatigue
  • sleep disturbance
  • shortness of breath
  • chest pain
  • indigestion
  • anxiety
  • shoulder blade or upper back pain

 

Recognize the symptoms: Women tend to end up at the emergency room 15 to 20 minutes later than men, and those minutes can mean a life.

 

Both women and men can fight heart disease through cardiovascular exercise, a healthy diet, and regular screenings. 

 

Heart Disease Signs

Heart Healthy Women

Women and Heart Disease Factors

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Testimony from Beyond the Grave

January 23, 2008 at 7:04 am (USA, on this day)
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(In the category of “On this day in…1897)

  

Just this week we heard about a housewife’s testimony from beyond the grave used to convict her husband. The soon-to-be-murdered woman gave her neighbor a video tape in which she testified that she suspected her husband might be trying to kill her. At the woman’s request, the neighbor handed it over to authorities after the murder.

 

The recorded testimony of a murder victim is rarely admitted into evidence because the defense is unable to cross-examine. (Of course, my feeling is the defendant shoulda thought about that before he killed her.)

 

This isn’t the first instance a court has allowed testimony from beyond the grave to convict a killer, but the most unusual case may have been the 1897 murder of young Zona Shue.

 

On this day in 1897 (January 23) Zona Shue was found dead in her West Virginia home. Her husband Erasmus arrived at the house before the coroner, carried the body to her bed and dressed the corpse himself, in a dress with a high stiff collar. When the coroner examined her, the distraught Erasmus was cradling her neck, and snapped at the coroner. After a brief exam the coroner listed “everlasting faint” as the cause of death.

 

Zona Shue Zona's mom, Mary Jane Heaston

Zona Shue and her mother Mary Jane Heaston  

 

After the funeral (and after conspicuous behavior Erasmus’s part), Zona’s mother, Mary Jane Heaster, told the local prosecutor she had been visited by the spirit of her daughter. Zona’s ghost had said Erasmus was a violent man and had attacked her in a fit of rage for not preparing meat for dinner.

 

The prosecutor had Zona’s body exhumed. It was found her neck had been broken and windpipe smashed, and there were finger marks around her throat.

 

It came to light that Erasmus had been married twice before. Wife#1 divorced him claiming violent cruelty. Wife#2 was not so lucky. She died under mysterious circumstances a year after they were married.

 

At the trial the prosecutor didn’t let Mary Jane mention the ghost story, but under cross-examination the defense attorney introduced the testimony, hoping the jury would discredit Mary Jane.

 

It backfired.

 

Mary Jane stuck to her ghost story and was evidently such a strong witness that, not only did the jury vote to convict, a lynch mob formed in an (unsuccessful) attempt to hang Erasmus after he was sentenced to life in prison.

 

Zona's house and murder site

The Shue house where Zona’s body was found

 

Erasmus died in prison three years later.

 

It goes to show, if there’s one thing more damning than a skeleton in the closet, it’s a ghost at your mother-in-law’s. 

 

http://www.prairieghosts.com/shue.html

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Carmenta - Roman Sex Goddess

January 11, 2008 at 9:13 am (Pagan, Roman)
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If you’re like everyone I know, you had a baby this Fall. 

 

But if you (or your loved one) are still expecting, you might want to give a shout out to Carmenta today, the Roman Goddess of Prophecy, Protectress of women in childbirth, and an early symbol of women’s lib. 

 

Today marks the first day of Carmentalia, the Roman festival in her honor, observed by the women of ancient Rome.

 

This corresponds in name to the Latin Carmenta or Carmentis, of whom Preller says: The Goddess of Birth, Carmenta, was so zealously worshipped near the Porta Carmentalis, which was named from her, that there was a Flamen Carmentalis, and two calendar days, the eleventh and fifteenth of January, called the Carmentalia, devoted to her worship. These were among the most distinguished festivals of the Roman matrons.

– C. Leland, Etruscan Roman Remains 

 

She also bears much in common with Themis (below), the Greek Goddess of divine law and wisdom.

 

 

According to Ovid, she traveled from Greece to Italy with her son Evander, where Evander founded the city of Pallantium. Pallantium was named after their Greek hometown of Pallantium, Aracadia, and was one of the 7 hills that later became Rome.

 

 

(View from Palantine Hill)

 

Carmenta was famous for chanting her prophecies in verse. Her Greek name was Nicostrate, but when she arrived in Italy, the locals called the singing woman Carmenta, for the Latin ‘carmina’, or ’song’.

 

Another explanation holds the opposite: Carmenta predated the Latin word for song, and ‘carmina’ derived from the prophetess’s name.

 

‘Mente’ meant ‘wise’ or ‘mind’. Car-menta could have meant ‘Car the Wise’. Or as Plutarch suggests, ‘Out of the Mind’, because she acted crazy.

 

She was associated with artistic and technological innovation and is co-credited for inventing the Latin alphabet (with Al Gore and her son Evander.) There is little evidence to support this, but Latin was indeed based on a Greek variant.

 

According to Virgil she used her powers of prophesy to choose the best site of the future Rome on which to establish her son. Once she even foretold Hercules the fate that awaited him.

 

How she came to be the Goddess of Childbirth is unclear. The women’s cult that grew around her was said to have predated Rome. However, Plutarch’s and Ovid’s description of the origin of her temple is more about contraception (and possibly abortion) than fertility. 

 

 

 

During the Second Punic War (215 BC) the Roman Senate restricted the rights of women to ride in carriages or to wear certain clothing. This was an attempt to save resources such as horses, fabrics, and gold for the war effort.

 

But when the war ended, these rights were not reinstated.

 

The women of Rome banded together and protested, the Lysistrata way. They refused to conceive children. (You can work out the details.) According to Plutrach they:

 

“kept their husbands at a distance until the husbands changed their minds and made the concession to them.”

 

After the laws were revoked, the women had numerous prodigy, and built the Temple of Carmenta in her honor.

 

Remains of Temple of Carmentis

 

At the temple the Goddess Carmenta could be invoked with one of two carmentes, lesser goddesses of childbirth, Postverta and Porrima–literally, “feet first” and “head first”. Possibly referring to which way the baby was delivered. It can also be read as “looking backward” and “looking forward,” citing Carmenta’s ability to tell the future. 

 

All forms of animal skin were banned in her temple. This meant no shoes, no leather, and no animal sacrifice:

 

“For on the day they had received life, they did not want to deprive another life.” –Varro, Cens. 2.2

 

The Carmentalia festival was unique in that it was celebrated on two separate dates, four days apart. (The second date was on January 15th.)

 

[The reason for this is uncertain. One theory is that it was originally on the 11th and 13th, but the 13th was the Ides of January. Or, as mentioned earlier, the Romans didn't have anything better to do in the middle of January.]

 

References:  

http://pagancalendar.co.uk/includes/event.php?id=1093 

http://www.novaroma.org/nr/Carmentis 

http://www.novaroma.org/nr/Carmentalia

Wiccan Spell-a-Day book

Carmentalia

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities

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