WOMEN’S ONGOING MARCH FOR EQUALITY

'Liberty Leading the People', the painting by Eugene Delacroix, 'Liberte, Egalite et Fraternite' depicting the storming of the Bastille.

Delacroix depicted Liberty as both an allegorical goddess-figure and a real woman during the first French Revolution, of 1789-94. This powerful image: woman as leader wasn’t a possibility at the time unless through marriage or birth.

In the 20th century there have been a few remarkable women leaders such as Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, and Indira Gandhi polled by the BBC in 1999 as the Woman of the Millennium. Gandhi's contributions as Prime Minister in India are remarkable, but would she have even gotten in the door if she weren’t Nehru’s daughter.

More than 200 years later, women still fight to gain a seat at the table. In 2016, American’s are holding their breath to see if they will have their first woman president.

As Betty Friedan said in “Particular Passions: Talks with Women who Shaped our Times.”

“When you're under the aegis of the feminine mystique, ...to do anything at all, you're going against the stream of society…” Fifty years after Friedan published her 'The Feminine Mystique' which reverberated around the world, for women to accomplish that’s what is required.

Read the brief chapter and oral biography of Betty Friedan, who fueled the women’s liberation movement that continues today around the globe.

"This is a wonderful book... The book is recommended reading for anyone — no matter what political or sociological background — who wants to know more about living history." — Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Available at Amazon and Apple for $0.99

DOROTHY MILLER OF MOMA CREATED EXCITING EXHIBITS CELEBRATING THE THRILL OF GREAT ART

"I have a tremendous passion for making a good exhibition. You’ve got fifteen artists, who’s going to be in the first gallery? The order in which you place the artists... you try to achieve... climaxes — something new is coming around the corner, it’s going to knock your eyes out...” — Dorothy Miller (one of 42 pioneers) in "Particular Passions: Talks with Women who Shaped Our Times"

Dorothy Canning Miller, curator of seminal exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art of her contemporaries, who went on to become the great American artists of the 20th century.

One of the reviews of Particular Passions:  “This is a wonderful book... The book is recommended reading for anyone — no matter what political or sociological background — who wants to know more about living history.” — Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Available at Amazon and Apple for $0.99.

HOW WOMEN ARE WINNING THE WAR -- Stories of Inspiration

“Failure is impossible.” - Susan B. Anthony

“There never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers.”

“Rosie the Riveter is a cultural icon of the United States, representing the American women who worked in factories during World War II, many of whom produced munitions and war supplies. These women sometimes took entirely new jobs replacing the male workers who were in the military. Rosie the Riveter is commonly used as a symbol of feminism and women's economic power.

Although women took on male dominated trades during World War II, they were expected to return to their everyday housework once men returned from the war. Government campaigns targeting women were addressed solely at housewives, perhaps because already employed women would move to the higher-paid "essential" jobs on their own, perhaps because it was assumed that most would be housewives. One government advertisement asked women "Can you use an electric mixer? If so, you can learn to operate a drill.” - Wikipedia

SEVEN DECADES LATER Nov 6th 2012: “Americans elected a record number of women to the Senate. The 113th Congress will include 20 female senators – more than ever before. In a country where women currently make up just 17 percent of the legislature but more than half of the electorate, you can either view this as very, very slow progress or a sign of things to come. We prefer the latter.- Huffington post.

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresea, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” –Life’s Little Instruction Book

ROSIE THE RIVETER “Rockwell painted the image of feminine brawn that symbolizes women's place in the World War II-era workforce for the May 29, 1943, cover of The Saturday Evening Post. Rockwell's Rosie is posed as an homage to Michelangelo's frescoed depiction of the prophet Isaiah from the Sistine Chapel ceiling. The 52-by-40-inch oil on canvas depicts "Rosie" on lunch break, her riveting gun on her lap as she uses a dog-eared copy of Mein Kampf as a foot stool.”

Particular Passions: Women who Shaped our Times -- the oral biographies of 46 pioneering women of the 20th Century.

A comment on "The Myth of Male Decline"

The Myth of Male Decline, By STEPHANIE COONTZ, published in The New York Times on September 29, 2012  generated 235 Comments - here is ours.

The conversation about the role of women was well articulated by Betty Friedan - "You're never finished."

In her oral interview for "Particular Passions: Talks with Women Who Shaped Our Times," Friedan discusses the need for men and women to define the multiple roles that we all play -- in the workforce, at home, as mothers, as wives. What we see in today's society - with this article in The Times, and Marissa Mayer's assertion that she will work through her maternity leave  -- is that in the 40 years since Friedan wrote "The Feminine Mystique," this conversation has yet to take place.

"The way . . . you can have children now, when you've already started on your work, and know what you can do, you are not subject to the guilts. That was the worst, the guilts, the conflicts . . . That put negative valences on one's own enjoyment of motherhood. It's such a short period. I wish I'd felt free to concentrate on them more."

Enjoy a complimentary interview with Betty Friedan in her own words - an oral interview from the book, Particular Passions - free.

"A forceful inspiration—a revelation of woman’s courage, spirit, and strength.”

— Redbook