Who said “The Most Important Career Decision You Make Is Who You Marry”?

Answer: Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, (whose estimated worth is over a billion dollars), considered now one of the most powerful women in the world. Her book “Lean In” and foundation LeanIn.org is all about fostering and nurturing and inspiring leadership in girls and women. Her message is all about leaning in to your ambition.

Boys, she says, are socialized to be assertive and aggressive and take leadership. Girls? “We call our little girls bossy,” Sandberg says. “Go to a playground: Little girls get called ‘bossy’ all the time, a word that’s almost never used for boys. And that leads directly to the problems women face in the workforce.

Her book is controversial but read it for yourself. I think her message is fabulous!
Check out her website

http://leanin.org

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I am SO PROUD to be a Women’s History Expert for
SheSource
which is part of the Women’s Media Center,

SheSource is an online braintrust of female experts on diverse topics designed to serve journalists, producers and bookers who need female guests and sources.

The Women’s Media Center http://www.womensmediacenter.com/ makes women visible and powerful in the media. The WMC works with the media to ensure that women’s stories are told and women’s voices are heard through media advocacy campaigns, media monitoring for sexism, creating original content, training women and girls to participate in media, and promoting media experienced women experts. The WMC directly engages with the media at all levels to ensure that a diverse group of women is present in newsrooms, on air, in print and online, in ?lm, entertainment, and theater, as sources and subjects. 

The Women’s Media Center was founded in 2005 as a non-profit progressive women’s media organization by Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan, and Gloria Steinem.

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SATURDAY MAY 11th at 6PM – HoopLA

Speaking of female leadership, a fabulous Los Angeles Female, Erika Schickel, just leaned in and has created HoopLA – “a new kind of variety show”. If you are in Los Angeles, check it out.

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I am helping inaugurate the first show May 11th 2013 and will be performing some of
SHE’S HISTORY!
This month’s theme: MOTHER (it IS Mother’s Day Weekend) 
The line-up is pretty cool….

 Sandra Tsing Loh, Weba Garretson, Gayle Brandeis, Amy Simon, Samantha Dunn

Saturday, May 11 @ 6pm
Club Fais Do Do
5253 West Adams Boulevard, Los Angeles 90016

For Info: http://lareviewofbooks.org/hoopla.php

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A Match Made In Heaven
SHE’S HISTORY! and The Girl Scouts! 

GIRLTOPIA

A Teen Summit at The Los Angeles Convention Center
hosted by Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles
A one day awe-inspiring conference for One Thousand Girls in grades 6-12.
SHE’S HISTORY! will be there, bringing to life the many unknown fabulous females
who embody the Girls Scouts mission:

To build girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.

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More Los Angeles Leadership News

I attended the very cool West Hollywood Women’s Leadership Conference 2013. I went with my favorite Women’s Documentary Filmmaker – Martha Wheelock, in whose film California Women Win The Vote! (http://wildwestwomen.org/), I played California pioneer Maude Younger (The Millionaire Waitress)

Martha Wheelock and Amy Simon

The conference kicked off with Geena Davis, the Oscar nominated actress who played the President (Commander In Chief) on TV. Motherhood inspired her to Chair the California Commission on the Status of Women. She is also the Founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and SeeJane.org, whose brilliant message to girls is: If You Can’t See It You Can’t Be it. The statistics on girls and women being unrepresented – and stereotypically represented in media are staggering. Check it out….

http://www.seejane.org/

Next was a screening of the Academy Award nominated film “The Invisible War” with producer Amy Ziering and Director Kirby Dick. This is a brilliant film about sexual assault in the military. Women serving in combat zones are more likely to be raped by a comrade than killed by enemy fire. Women are blamed, demoted, fired and punished for reporting their sexual assaults. Military Sexual Trauma (MST) is the new term used by The Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) to refer to this rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment. Mindblowing. For more info click here:

 http://invisiblewarmovie.com/

I attended many panels including “50/50: Leadership, Representation and Equality.” Moderated by former state legislator Sheila Kuehl – a most FABULOUS Trail-Blazing Modern Day Pioneer. We in the audience were inspired and motivated - and urged to run for office - by all the panelists, including Elana Pianko, Chair of the LA Council for the National Women’s History Museum. A short film was shown with little girls playing the roles of many many unknown fabulous females in history – who are IN SHE’S HISTORY!

I am looking forward to collaborating with Elana Pianko, who told her story of being inspired to Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg’s book. Mentoring was a topic discussed and emphasis was on encouraging WOMEN TO RUN FOR OFFICE. I learned there is a difference between a woman candidate, and a woman’s candidate…..

The always articulate and brilliantly informed women’s rights kick-ass activist/lawyer Sandra Fluke also inspired the crowds. She was the Georgetown law student, who Rush Limbaugh called a slut and a prostitute when she tried to address members of Congress about contraception and employer health plans (radio host Rush Limbaugh called her a “slut” ).

Her message: YES YOU CAN – and ask for help from your community. This DON’T GO IT ALONE message was a theme of this leadership conference.

Amy Simon and Sandra Fluke

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VERY SAD NEWS FOR THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT

Mary Thom, a chronicler of the feminist movement and former executive editor of Ms. magazine, died in a motorcycle accident. She was 68 and lived in Manhattan.

Mary Thom

I did not know Ms. Thom, but she was another Fabulous Female, another unknown unheralded heroine who inspired and trail blazed and SHE’S HISTORY! acknowledges her contribution to the Women’s Movement. 

Read about her, please…

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/business/media/mary-thom-a-chronicler-of-thefeminist-movement-dies-at-68.html?_r=0

http://msmagazine.com/blog/2013/05/01/public-memorial-for-mary-thom-and-a-newaward-in-her-name/

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Fabulous Female Facts Every Wednesday at RADIOORNOT.COM

Another Fabulous Female, Nicole Sandler hosts her own show. Check her out

http://radioornot.com/

March is Women’s History Month. Most people don’t know that. And THAT is shocking.

In honor of women, PBS has aired a fantastic three hour documentary called MAKERS.COM – “a digital platform developed by AOL, showcasing hundreds of compelling stories from women of today and tomorrow.” What a great idea! (You can watch the entire show on their website http://www.makers.com/). The show is loaded with fabulous females telling their true horrifying and inspiring stories such as Oprah telling a story of how in 1980, she was co-hosting a Baltimore TV show and earning $22,000 and learned her male co-host was earning $50,000. When she complained to her boss, he asked why she should make that much and she told him “because we are doing the same job”. He argued with her and defended the male co-host, saying he had a family to support and bills to pay. Oprah said she knew she couldn’t make a big stink or she would be blackballed. She just thought; “I’ll show him”. And that’s when she got the idea to have her OWN show. Watch that interview here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/28/about-oprah-winfrey-life-history- makers_n_2760337.html

Of course Oprah has gone on to make amazing “women’s history”, and sadly there are TONS of stories like this, but first – a little History…about Women’s History Month, an idea inspired by a question posed by a boy. There are plenty of men who have helped – and continue to help – women achieve equality. And there are plenty of women who have opposed – and continue to oppose – women achieving equality. Phyllis Schlafly pretty much single-handedly organized women AND men to stop the Equal Rights Amendment from being passed. HER story is in the MAKERS.COM show.

It was a man – Victor Hugo who said: “Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.”

The idea of Women’s History Month started in 1972 when a high school student in Los Angeles, taking a U.S. History class, asked his teacher a question. “What is the Woman’s Movement?” He was introduced to THAT idea when he saw a copy of the brand new Ms. Magazine.Molly McGregor, twenty-six year old history freak was this boy’s teacher. Molly said she was glad the boy asked her this question on a Friday, because she needed the weekend to come up with the answer. So she said to the boy “that’s a good question”.

She went home and looked through her vast collection of history books to find some information, and to her dismay and disgust, found ONE book with ONE chapter, on Seneca Falls – a dusty upstate New York town where the very first Woman’s Convention was held in 1848. That’s when a seed was planted and Molly McGregor got the idea to bring Women’s History and Women’s struggles and accomplishments into the schools, and consciousness of America. She was not alone.

In 1966 actress Marlo Thomas, tired of being offered roles as “the wife of somebody”, or “the daughter of somebody” or “the secretary of somebody”, went to the head of ABC and said, “it’s time for a woman to be the somebody.” What a radical idea! Then she pulled a copy of Betty Friedan’s groundbreaking The Feminine Mystique out of her purse and handed it to him. “This is where it’s going”, she said. And Marlo Thomas, became a trailblazer – the producer and star of That Girl, a show about a single woman living alone pursuing a career in New York City. Watch that interview here: http://collider.com/marlo-thomas-makers-women-who-make-america-interview/.

She tell this story on the MAKERS.COM documentary which is narrated by Meryl Streep, who played Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the film Iron Lady. Ms. Streep donated ONE MILLION DOLLARS of her Iron Lady salary to help build a Women’s History Museum on the National Mall in Washington. “Any woman who understands the problems of running a home, is that much nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.”, said Ms. Thatcher, when she was making history running England.

Back in 1848 in Seneca Falls, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the “Architect of the Woman’s Movement” drafted a Declaration of Sentiments, modeled after The Declaration Of Independence, in which she proposed that “all men AND WOMEN” are created equal. She then had the audacity to insist that women be given suffrage – the right to vote. It was a shocking and radical idea. She and her buddy, famed and revered abolitionist Frederick Douglass, managed to get The Declaration of Sentiments published in the New York Herald and all hell broke loose. They called it: The Most Shocking And Unnatural Incident Ever Recorded In The History Of Womanity!

It took until 1920 for women in this country to get the right to vote. THAT is shocking!.

March 8th is International Woman’s Day. Some people DO know this, but probably don’t know it grew out of a declaration made in 1909 by the Socialist Party of America demanding equal rights – such as voting – for women.

In 1978, Molly McGregor creates a “Sexism In Education” course that she is teaching in Sonoma, California and gets the idea for a whole week to celebrate Women’s History, to coincide with International Women’s Day – March 8th. She takes her idea to the folks in charge of ALL the school districts, “an easy easy sell”, she says, and it turns out to be a fabulously successful and exciting week. Her idea catches the attention of Gerda Lerner, the fabulous female pioneering scholar with a doctorate in history (who is responsible for bringing women’s history into the academic world). Ms. Lerner took Molly McGregor’s idea for Women’s History Week to some of her friends who happen to be friends with President Carter. Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Mikulski (who holds the record as the longest serving woman in Congress!) and Republican Orrin Hatch (a man!) get behind it, lobbying takes place, and in 1980 the President makes the Declaration and the rest is…..herstory. ((It was in 1987 that the whole month of March was declared)

Today, Molly McGregor is as busy as ever. Back in 1980, she founded The National Women’s History Project (http://www.nwhp.org/) which inspired me to create SHE’S HISTORY! As a performer listed on her website, I got my first booking when I was hired by The Equal Opportunity Program for The Bulldog Brigade at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. They went to the NWHP looking for a speaker to celebrate Women’s History Month.

What’s really shocking though is that in 2013, women STILL EARN ONLY SEVENTY SEVEN CENTS TO THE MAN’S DOLLAR, and women running for public office are still being asked how they will manage as an elected official and a mother. (Watch the Makers interview here http://www.makers.com/pat-schroeder) Back in 1972, Pat Schroeder, running for Congress, was asked how SHE would manage. Her response: “I have a brain and a uterus and they both work”. MAKES sense.

Read more about how Molly did it here:

http://www.nwhp.org/whm/history.php

Here’s what happened.

August 10th, 2012, there I was in Los Angeles, having just moved for the second time in nine months, unexpectedly child-free for the first time in twenty years, an unplanned empty nester, surrounded by boxes, in my new apartment, depressed, disgusted and enraged with The Family Legal System and with all of life’s injustices. I find myself at 7AM in Peet’s Coffee shop, reading an email from Diana Mara Henry, Bella Abzug’s photographer. “If you are in New York City on November 19th, we would be delighted to have you ‘say a few words’ as Bella Abzug! “

I read it again and again.  “I must be dreaming”, I thought, and for the first time in a long time, I felt something other than sad.  So I pinched myself, ordered a large low-fat wet cappuccino, went back to my box-filled apartment, called Diana Mara Henry and said “why yes, I DO plan on being in Manhattan on November 19th (I had NO INTENTION of being in Manhattan on November 19th) and would love to say a few words as Bella”.

For the uninitiated, Bella Abzug was a pioneering feminist, activist, pacifist, lawyer, mother, loud mouth hat wearing revered New York Congresswoman.   And she was best friends with Gloria Steinem.

“Give ‘em hell Bella”.  That’s what I heard growing up in New York and distinctly remember seeing and hearing her on televsion with her big hats – and big mouth. You could not miss her.   It wasn’t until I became a mom raising two girls and started my women’s history journey, that I learned about Bella and I learned that I didn’t know ANYTHING about her.  This herstorical ignorance which permeates our world is what inspires me – now at the tender age of 56, with two teenage daughters, to turn the world on to all the fabulous females we don’t know about with SHE’S HISTORY!

Don’t know who took this photo – got it from the Internet.
If anyone knows, please contact me so I can give credit.

I had the honor of meeting Bella’s buddy, Ms. Steinem, twice before, and we had chatted about SHE’S HISTORY! but she had never seen me perform.  What brought us together was WOMEN ON THE MOVE – the 35th anniversary celebration of an amazing event that no one knows about.  The 1977 Houston Woman’s Conference, planned, and organized by Bella, who was appointed by President Carter to head the National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year “to promote equality between men and women”.

Ahhhh.  “Promote equality between men and women.”

So many things made November 19th-21st, 1977 so special, so amazing, so life-changing for so many women AND men. Bella got the whole thing started and got the government – for the first and only time – to pay for this National Woman’s Conference. One hundred and fifty thousand people participated in the planning of the conference with every state being represented.  Twenty thousand people attended the conference, including Gloria Steinem, Susan B. Anthony II (the grand niece of her namesake), Maya Angelou, Coretta Scott King, Betty Friedan, Barbara Jordan, Billie Jean King, and New York Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, the youngest woman to have been elected to the House of Representatives. And Diana Mara Henry captured it all, as official photographer of the National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year, sponsor of the conference and the 50 state meetings that preceded it to elect delegates and formulate a plan of action.

The very first woman’s conference was held in 1848, in Seneca Falls New York.  The notice in the paper said: “A Convention to discuss the social, civil and religious condition and rights of woman”.   In other words, to “promote equality between men and women”.  A Declaration of Sentiments was hammered out (modeled after the Declaration of Independence) including the resolution that “all men AND WOMEN” are created equal.  Caused quite the stir! It wasn’t until 1920 that the 19th Amendment was passed giving American women the right to vote, but back in 1848,  Elizabeth Cady Stanton had the nerve to demand that a woman’s right to vote be included in the Declaration of Sentiments.  It was, and all hell broke loose.  The New York Herald called it “the most shocking and unnatural incident ever recorded in the history of womanity.”

On September 29th, 1977,  forty-nine days before the conference, a torch was lighted in Seneca Falls and carried by a relay of runners to Houston – 2600 miles away.  Maya Angelou wrote a new Declaration Of Sentiments that was signed along the way. Do you have goose bumps yet? Peggy Kokernot, Michele Cearcy and Sylvia Ortiz were the three runners who carried the torch for the last mile.

Copyright © 1977 Diana Mara Henry / www.dianamarahenry.com

From left to right: Sylvia Ortiz, Peggy Kokernot and Michele Cearcy

Copyright © 1977 Diana Mara Henry / www.dianamarahenry.com

And there they were – running that last mile, left to right: Billie Jean King, Susan B. Anthony II, Bella Abzug, Sylvia Ortiz, Peggy Kokernot, Michelle Cearcy, and Betty Friedan!

Copyright © 1977 Diana Mara Henry / www.dianamarahenry.com

They presented it to (above) LADY BIRD JOHNSON, ROSALYNN CARTER and BETTY FORD.

That’s Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman in the background applauding, with Bella Abzug, and Donna de Varona, Suzy Chaffee and Michelle Cearcy at right, and in foreground, Peg Kokernot and Sylvia Ortiz.

Both Ms. Holtzman and Ms. Steinem, as well as most of the people in the audience for whom I performed, including the torch runners, were at the anniversary celebration in New York City.  Most had attended the Houston conference in 1977, and many were friends and colleagues of Bella’s, knew, loved, was inspired by, and miss Bella (she died in 1998).

I am not used to performing for people who actually know or knew the “dangerous” women I portray on stage, so it was thrilling and nerve-wracking, but ultimately, ended up being one of the coolest things I have done.

Photo by Robin L Gallagher
Chatting with Gloria Steinem, after my Bella performance.  She was telling me the best Bella biographies to read.

Photo by Robin L Gallagher

This is Elizabeth Holtzman, former New York Congresswoman, who I grew up admiring!While in congress, she played a key role in the impeachment of President Nixon and was a dedicated Nazi-Hunter.

This celebration was a reunion for the people of ’77, and the theme that kept emerging as the speakers took their turns was “unfinished business”.  They all spoke of how inspiring and energizing the Houston Conference was but how there is still SO MUCH TO DO!

Please visit Diana Mara Henry’s website and see the photos and read the speeches and words of Billie Jean King, many of the delegates and others including Lucy Komisar of the Komisar Scoop, who talked about the last conversation she had Sept.4, 2005, with Betty Friedan, at her house in Sag Harbor.

http://www.womenonthemoveonline.com

Photo by Robin L Gallagher
Here I am with Diana Mara Henry – who made it all happen.  Her book “Women On The Move” is amazing!

Back in August when I got the email inviting me to NYC, I planned a fabulous four days and ended up doing four shows.  I was definitely a Woman On The Move!

And I got lucky.  An old friend and colleague from my New York Improv days is a Director at The Henry Street Settlement, a not-for-profit social service agency that provides social services, arts programs and health care, catering to low-income families in the Lower East Side of New York City – where my mom and her family – immigrants from Eastern Europe -  grew up.  Founded by another fabulous female I want to turn the world on to Lillian Wald, – a rich and privileged nurse, activist and humanitarian who inspires me.  She spent her life making the world better. When I mentioned to my dad “I am doing a show for the Henry Street Settlement.  Have you ever heard of it daddy?”.  He told me, “Yeah, they sent me to camp when I was eight years old”.   More goosebumps.

I brought two books about Lillian Wald with me.  A biography “Always a Sister; The Feminism of Lillian Wald”, that I planned to donate to the school and one of her autobiographies,  “The House On Henry Street” hoping to get the twenty-four middle school students I was performing for to sign.  I love performing SHE’S HISTORY! for the kids.  They are always so surprised to hear the stories and nothing engages like theatre.  I was there BEFORE the Newtown shooting and I bring this up because I told them about Malala Yousafzai, the fourteen year old Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban on her school bus for trying to go to school.  A theme of my show is “quiet woman, stand in the back and let the men do the talking”. They were mesmerized by Malala’a story.  “In the head”, I answered, when the little boy in the front row asked where exactly was she shot?  Details, they wanted details.  I show her picture in my slideshow and suddenly she was very real.  You could see the effect it had on them.

Of course, now, after Newtown, I wonder if I did the right thing telling them about Malala.   It did not occur to me (or anyone) that this kind of violence could happen to an American Elementary school student.  Malala is miraculously recovering in a London hospital.  (Left the hospital on Friday January 4th 2013)

I only had thirty-five minutes to perform but they loved it and afterwards, I asked if I could have a picture with them.  They rushed to encircle me and one of the boys grabbed a flag I use to drape a table and held it up. The energy was delicious.  Then I held up my copy of Lillian Wald’s House on Henry Street and asked “can you all sign your name in my book because I know you will each grow up and do something amazing and I want to say I knew you”.  Well.  You should have seen them run to do it and patiently wait their turn.  One girl came up to me holding the biography of Lillian Wald that I donated.  “You are just giving this to us?, she asked?  She could not believe it.  It was so rewarding and heartbreaking and heartwarming to be able to perform for these kids, many of whom I was told, lived in shelters, and also just survived Hurricane Sandy.

Photo by Robin L Gallagher

After that, I was taken on a tour of Lillian Wald’s home – the actual House On Henry Street, a five story block long building where it all started and now serves as the administrative headquarters.  Goosebumps all over the place.

The Henry Street show started my four days in New York.  The next night, I did a fundraiser for The Museum Of Motherhood (museumofmotherhood.org).  The founder is my friend, fabulous female, Joy Rose, who is the founder. Whenever I am in New York with the show, I do a fundraiser for the Museum.

October 2011 Fundraiser                                                  March 2012 Fundraiser

Photo by Robin L Gallagher

Joy Rose Introducing The Show

My friend Kim works for the Coalition Against Trafficking In Women.  She came with her boss Norma, the director.  After the show we had a fascinating talkback, which began with the a discussion of the word prostitute, inspired by Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for President in 1872, who has a big part in my show and who is known as The Prostitute Who Ran For President.  “We prefer using the term “prostituted” a verb, as in ‘she was prostituted’. Something was done to her.  You don’t call someone that which is done to them”, explained Norma, and we went on to discuss a variety of subjects, all inspired by the trail-blazing women in the show.

Back in August, after I agreed to be Bella, I realized it took place three days before Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday.  I knew this would be a really tough one, so I decided to fly from New York to Florida (where all the old New York Jews are required to live) and spend Thanksgiving with my eighty-seven year old super cool father. My mom died in 2009. My dad, a WWII veteran, used to drive a cab in New York, is quite the character, a history buff, my hero, and sharp as a tack.  His body is another story – but his mind?  Fahgetaboudit.  Every Wednesday morning, I do a live segment of Fabulous Female Facts on radioornot.com, Nicole Sandler’s political internet radio program. The day after arriving in Florida, when I went on the air chatting about my New York adventures, I was sitting with my dad in his kitchen.   He was reading during the segment and when I was recounting the story of the runners with the torch I said, “and they delivered it to three first ladies; Betty Ford, Rosalynn Carter and ……..” and then I totally blanked!  So I said “oh, I am totally blanking”, and my dad looks up and says “Lady Bird Johnson”.  I told him the story ONCE.  What a guy!

I spent the rest of the week, relaxing, enjoying my dad, reliving my New York adventures and being so thankful for the opportunity to perform SHE’S HISTORY!

“With gratitude for bringing us Bella’s words”.   Sometimes, all it takes is a little appreciation.

The 2012 USA Women’s Olympic Teams broke records, kicked butt and made headlines.  Shannon Eastin became the National Football League’s First Female Line Judge and refereed her first game in San Diego, and Tammy S. Smith became the Army’s first openly gay brigadier general.  The All-Male Augusta National Gold Club finally let the gals in, inviting Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and business executive Darla Moore. Diana Nyad made her fourth attempt swimming from Cuba to Florida and was forced to abandon her thirty-five year old dream, one day shy of her 63rd birthday. And Comedy Pioneer Phyllis Diller died.

And that was just in August.

Also in August, the ghost of Anne Hutchinson, 17^th Century Puritan, mother of the First Amendment, religious freedom pioneer, hovered around PUSSY RIOT, a Russian punk rock band comprised of three women (two of them moms of young kids) who were convicted of premeditated hooliganism. They were sentenced to two years in prison for performing a punk prayer in a Russian church criticizing President Vladimir Putin.  They are considered a danger to society and accused of religious hatred.  Yup, they challenged authority, and the government in a sacred space – a church.  Just like Anne Hutchinson, bible teacher, midwife and mother of fifteen who in the 1600s had the audacity to challenge the government and the religious leaders of her day by having “religious meetings” in her own home and sharing her opinions with other women – and even some men (making the meetings promiscuous – a sin), including Governor Vane – a fan.  Oy.  Such chutzpah.  She had the outlandish idea that one could have salvation (a Puritan biggie) just by having faith.  One could pray and feel god all by oneself.  She called this The Covenant of Grace, which opposed the Covenant of Works, which the Church preached, requiring one to do service – work – to earn salvation. Oh and one had to obey the church and government to get salvation. Like the PUSSY RIOT gals, Anne Hutchinson also got two years  – that’s how long her trial lasted.  But she used the time to birth a baby (her fourteenth!) and stand up – literally – to the men who accused her.  What really pissed them off was the fact that she was smarter than them.  She knew that bible inside and out and had an answer for every one of their questions.  So they convicted her of heresy and sedition and banished her to Rhode Island, a state founded on the premise of “separation of church and state” which Thomas Jefferson first wrote about in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists in reference to The First Fabulous Amendment.  Thank you Ms. Hutchinson.

When I first heard the Pussy Riot report on Friday August 17^th on KABC News Los Angeles, the punk rock band’s name could not be said on Network Television.  It’s Ok to say pussycat and pussy foot and pussy willow but Pussy Riot – not OK.  But that changed as the story grew and the band’s name could be uttered as well as printed.  Ahhh progress.  Yes we live in such a progressive world that in 2012, a Congressman (Missouri Republican Todd Akin) can say on national television, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”  The saddest part is that he believed that.

What a world.

August 26^th is Women’s Equality Day.  The day we honor and celebrate the passage of the 19^th Amendment – The Susan B. Anthony Amendment.  In 1971, New York Congresswoman, activist, lawyer, mensch and mom Bella Abzug, first introduced legislation to designate August 26^th Women’s Equality Day, commemorating the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, Women’s Suffrage giving women in this country the right to vote.  Well, as the National Women’s History Project (http://www.nwhp.org ) wrote in their August 2012 Newsletter, no one “gave” the gals the right to vote.  It was a long hard battle.

Those galvanizing gals Susan B. Anthony and her partner Elizabeth Cady Stanton first introduced the Amendment way back in 1878.  They were long gone when the House passed it on May 21, 1919, the Senate on June 4, 1919. It took thirty-six states to ratify an amendment and make it a law.  Harry Burns was a first time twenty-four year old Tennessee Member of The House of Representatives.  His mom sent him a now famous telegram:  “Hurrah! And vote for suffrage…”

He did, making history and Tennessee the 36^th state to ratify The Amendment. Thanks mom!

The first woman to ask to vote – that we know of and can document  – was Margaret Brent way way back in 1648. One of thirteen children, Margaret Brent was born in England and came from a family that was rich, Catholic, of noble descent and distant cousins with England’s George Calvert – AKA Lord Baltimore, the “proprietor” of Maryland. Yes he OWNED Maryland. His brother, Leonard Calvert, was the Governor of Maryland, which was touted as a land of opportunity.  The colony needed settlers and Lord Baltimore enticed them by offering them land.  Now what set Margaret apart was, first of all she was thirty-seven and not married. Second, she – and her sister became property owners – Lord Baltimore gave them land grants – seventy acres. If one owned property and paid taxes, one could vote, if one were a man. Now if Margaret were to marry, the land would belong to her husband.  Margaret never married.  She “acquired” even more land and well, it turns out Margaret is a terrific businesswoman, and, she was pretty darned good with real estate.  SO good that the Governor – on his deathbed – gave her power of attorney and made her executor of his will and estate. So now she owns – and pays taxes as the owner and executor of two properties and logically she wants a vote. Two votes.  So she goes down to the courthouse and asks – actually demands the right to vote.  They turned her down, of course.  But she made history.

Jan. 21, 1647[/8]. “Came Mrs Margaret Brent and requested to have vote in the howse for herselfe and voyce also for that att the last Court 3d Jan: it was ordered that the said Mrs Brent was to be lookd uppon and received as his Lps Attorney. The Govr denyed that the sd Mrs Brent should have any vote in the howse And the sd Mrs Brent protested agst all proceedings in this pnt Assembly unlesse shee may have vote as aforesd.”

The first woman on record who actually voted was Lydia Taft, a Massachusetts mom married to Josiah.  They were a very prominent, wealthy family.  Only freeholders – white male property – were allowed to vote but when Josiah suddenly died, the townspeople decided to let Lydia cast a vote in a big important meeting in 1756 appropriating funds for the French and Indian War.  So she made history.  And in 2004, she got a highway named after her.

Then of course in 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, super cool Quaker Lucretia Mott and few other fabulous females had a little tea party, which led to the very first Women’s Conference in Seneca Falls, New York. A sign was posted in the local paper; “Women’s Right’s Convention – A convention to discuss the social, civil and religious condition and rights of woman will be held….in the Wesleyan Church in Seneca Falls. The gals drafted a Declaration of Sentiments, modeled on The Declaration of Independence, the founding fathers list of eighteen grievances against King George.  The gals just substituted MEN for KING GEORGE. “All men AND WOMEN are created equal”. Elizabeth Cady Stanton took the controversial and individual decision to go on record asking to be enfranchised, for suffrage – to vote. “Lizzie” as her mentor, and buddy Lucretia Mott affectionately called her, stood alone on that one.  “Why Lizzie”, said Ms. Mott, “thy will make us look ridiculous!” But Lizzie would not back down and managed to get Frederick Douglass – the most famous abolitionist – to back her up. Resolved: That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise. She got it in there but they did not get the vote until 72 years later.

From Left To Right:

Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Every year since 1878, the gals pushed for the Amendment.  Then in 1913, a little lady named Alice Paul came along.  She was a brilliant, ballsy, Ivy League educated – she had more degrees than a thermometer – militant, hunger-striking, suffragist who really pissed of President Wilson when she stole his parade. And she stole his parade – or at least his thunder.  Yup.   The day before his inauguration March 1913, The President-Elect arrived at Union Station in Washington DC expecting a welcoming crowd, or two…. “Where are the people?” he asked.  Well, thanks to Alice Paul’s brilliant orchestration, the crowds were, he was told,  “On the Avenue watching the suffragists parade”.  The suffragists wanted the vote.

It was the largest parade ever in Washington.

Imagine what she could do with Facebook.

Alice Paul was a Jersey girl who knew that Knowledge IS Power. She presented herself as a lovely, quite feminine soft-spoken lady – but there was nothing ladylike in her demands.  She got her first degree – a BA – from Swarthmore College which opened in Pennsylvania in 1854 – one of the first co-ed colleges in the country, founded by a bunch of super cool Quakers including her grandfather AND – LUCRETIA MOTT!  Alice proceeded to get a Masters, A PHD, an LLB (bachelor of Law) and LLM (Master Of Law degree) and finally a Doctor of Civil Law degree in 1928.  She studied in England as well and while there, wanting to “experience the daily life of an industrial worker”, she worked for a rubber factory so she really knew what she was talking about when she advocated for workers rights.  She made tires for automobiles and worked from 6AM to 6PM.  “If a girl was a good worker, she could make a little under five dollars a week”, she wrote her mother in 1908. While in England, Alice Paul also was mentored by The Pankhursts.  Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters were militant English Suffragettes.   Remember Mrs. Banks in Mary Poppins… picketing with the suffragettes?  Remember the song where they were singing?

“Political equality and equal rights with men. Take heart for Missus Pankhurst has been clapped with irons again”.

The Pankhursts were very militant and smashed windows and used hunger strikes to get attention, which worked well in England but not so much in America where Alice Paul tried hunger striking.  She and a bunch of gals were arrested for LEGALLY and PEACEFULLY protesting – picketing in front of The White House…

for the right to vote. We were at war then (WWI) and the gals’ protest was seen as un-patriotic – and of course Wilson was still pissed off about the Parade.  Now Alice Paul and her gal pals had been trying for years and years to get President Wilson to address the issue of suffrage.  She was polite at first but grew weary and frustrated and like Glen Close in Fatal Attraction, she would not be ignored.  It galled her and her gal pals that the President was so willing, as she put it – and she put it on banners everywhere – to go to war to fight for liberty – but not for the women!  “How long Mr. President must women wait for liberty?” The gals were arrested, charged with “obstructing sidewalk traffic” and literally, physically THROWN in jail – the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia. It was November 15^th 1917, The Night of Terror. There is a wonderful movie called Iron jawed Angels starring Hilary Swank as Alice Paul, which tells this story. They were served food with worms, dirty water – and worse.  Many of the women were viciously brutalized, including Alice Paul’s pal Lucy Burns who was beaten, chained and left hanging all night. What a disgraceful chapter in our history.

Alice Paul went on a hunger strike.  For three weeks, three times a day, they stuck tubes down her throat – and force-fed her raw eggs. Then the government hired a shrink to say she was insane – ‘cause that’s what we did with our women back then when they got out of hand.  We just threw ‘em in the psych ward.  But this shrink – he said, “No this woman is NOT insane.”

“Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity”.

Lots of courageous women went to jail.  And what a cool shrink!  But the Night Of Terror backfired on Wilson when word got out about how brutally the women were treated.  How they had applied for political prisoner status and were denied.  Throwing old ladies against the wall and beating them with their broken banners is NOT good publicity.   There was a hearing and a lot of press, which helped the movement. The torch was passed and The Nineteenth Amendment (Susan B. Anthony Amendment) was FINALLY passed

Alice Paul

In 1923 Alice Paul wrote The Equal Rights Amendment – which was originally called The Lucretia Mott Amendment.  It was passed in 1972 and ratified by thirty-five states.  Ratification then required thirty-eight states.

Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

We have come a long way since The 1848 Seneca Falls Convention.  There have been many many women’s conventions since, including the 1977 First National Women’s conference in Houston.  Thanks to Bella Abzug, for the first – and only time – the Federal Government funded the Conference. A torch was carried from Seneca Falls to Houston Texas and presented to Lady Bird Johnson, Betty Ford and Rosalyn Carter who said: “it was…the most important and exciting conference I have ever attended”.

My oldest daughter is nineteen and this year she will vote in November.  I get choked up just thinking about it.  She knows how important it is.  I hope and pray that she and her younger sister appreciate the power of their vote.  It has never been more important to honor Women’s Equality Day 2012.

Click below for a fabulous take on Women’s Equality Day:  Soomo Publishing’s video “Bad Romance: Women’s Suffrage”

http://soomopublishing.com/suffrage/

March 1^st – Immaculate Heart High School

If someone were outside the All Girl Immaculate Heart High School gymnasium -which doubles as an auditorium – and heard the cheers – one would assume there was a game going on.  But no.  The girls were cheering at Mary Wollstonecraft, and Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass.

It was March 1^st, 2012, the first day of Women’s History Month and I was performing SHE’S HISTORY! The Most Dangerous Women in America, Then And Now… for five hundred and forty fabulous future feminists.

This was my first high school performance and what a way to start Women’s History Month!  The girls were rapt!  Rapt I tell you.  They CHEERED at our first feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft – who wrote our first feminist book – A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman – or as I like to call it Don’t Punish Me For Having Ovaries!  They loved it when I called Bella Abzug, “a great GREAT Pain In The Ass”!  They screamed with recognition at Sojourner Truth.  And they went a bit crazy when Frederick Douglass came to the SHE’S HISTORY! party.

What a joy and a surprise to get this reaction from high school students. The day before I was working on some promotional materials in my Apple Class.  My tag line is “Why do we know more about Snookie than Abigail Adams?  My trainer – a nice 30ish year old man asked, “who is Abigail Adams”? My heart sank.  The night before I was at Staples printing a photo of me and Gloria Steinem who I got to meet for the second time, and asked the lovely young woman helping me, “Do you know who this is?”  When she said no I said “its Gloria Steinem”!  She had no idea who she was.

Immaculate Heart, private girls Catholic High School in Los Angeles, has a reputation as a rebel school.  No wonder those girls related to SHE’S HISTORY! Afterwards, several of the girls came up to me to tell me how much they enjoyed the show.  One lovely young woman gushed compliments, passionate about her desire to get “more people involved in feminism”.  I almost started crying.  Their very cool teacher Claire told me the school has a fabulous theater department (yay!) and the seniors were all taking AP History (a college prep course) and that is why so many were familiar with the women and story lines in the show. I profile, show slides, tell stories about, humanize and bring to life around 40 fabulous females – each one a rebel and each one deserving of their own show.  I am working on Victoria Woodhull’s – the first woman to run for President in 1872.  I didn’t get to perform her story for the rebels at Immaculate Heart, as I had to cut the show down to fit into their 50-minute schedule.  What a fabulous fifty minutes it was!  As Elizabeth Cady Stanton said to Susan B. Anthony – in a scene from the play -  “I am FIRED ANEW!!!”

Sunday, March 4^th SHE’S HISTORY! Show at The Lounge Theater in Hollywood

I keep a comment book at my performances and ask people to write in it after they see the show.  Here are some of the comments from that performance:

I really enjoyed the show.  Thank you for bringing the voices of the women whose shoulders we stand on. Carol W.

Thank you for an enlightening evening. Kelly G. 6^th Grade Teacher (who later contacted me about bringing the show in to her school but is, sadly, challenged by funding.  This is where the SHE’S HISTORY EDUCATION PROJECT comes in.)

You were awesome.  I am now really interested in Women’s History.  Emma, age 13

Wednesday March 7^th

Drive down from Los Angeles to San Diego for an interview I was lucky to get with the local Fox affiliate XETV-Channel 6, promoting the upcoming San Diego Fundraiser shows for The Women’s Museum of California. It is very exciting. Make all the necessary childcare arrangements, which is always challenging for single working parents, especially during the school week.  And of course, my daughter Ruby’s 15^th birthday is the next day.  Of course.  Luckily, her father is in town visiting/working from London where he lives.  She will be able to stay with him in his hotel.

March is crazy.  I made my own history somehow giving birth to both my girls in March.  (My oldest daughter Rose will celebrate her nineteenth birthday on March 22^nd). And when their father (my ex-husband) comes to town, it gets really complicated and hard on Ruby who feels such conflict – wanting to spend time with her dad (who left in 2009,) while trying to maintain her regular hectic ninth grade schedule of soccer, honors classes, and that all important social life.

Thursday March 8^th My Baby Is Fifteen!

6:45AM

It is Ruby’s birthday and I have a short window of opportunity to wish her a happy one before she goes to school. I am staying at my friend Patty’s house so I whisper my good wishes into the phone feeling terribly guilty. I arrive at the TV studio at 8:30 for the live, five to six minute segment.  This is my first television interview with SHE’S HISTORY! I am in the Green Room chatting with the other guests. When I tell people what I do: “I write and perform about women who make and made history”, I get the same “Ohhhhh.  Wow.  Really.  Huh.  That’s cool” response.  And then conversations ensue about fabulous females stemming from my asking; “do you know who the first woman was who ran for president?” Everyone is always so interested.

The Green Room at XETV-Channel 6

A very young, very blonde, very nice, VERY skinny woman in tight pants and high heels is interviewing me.  We have our little pre-interview.  I was asked to send them a load of info – talking points and photos and such.  She is confident and warm and very interested in the topic.  I just want to feed her. This is my first collaboration with The Women’s Museum Of California, my fiscal sponsor who is based in San Diego.  The two shows I am doing are fundraisers for the museum.  I have been working with the director Ashley Gardner for months now so this whole thing is kinda like our first date.

Doing this interview is actually a terrific opportunity to reach a large audience and I am nervous and excited and of course worried about my hair.  And struck with the irony that it is FOX TV.

So.  We do the interview and it is thrilling to talk about my gals and how they overcame obstacles and fought injustice and they are showing pictures  – look – Victoria Woodhull is on television!  And Elizabeth Cady Stanton! I am telling their stories, and my stories about how my daughters did not seem to realize the significance of Nancy Pelosi’s herstoric acceptance speech as first female Speaker of the House. The five minutes flew by and afterwards some of the television staff stops me to tell me how much they enjoyed the segment. Almost every conversation ends with my favorite comment.  The one I hear ALL THE TIME.  The one that motivates me to keep going when I look at my checkbook:

It is so important what you are doing.

It’s over.  I change back into my comfy clothes; stop at Starbucks and head back up to Los Angeles. My now fifteen-year-old Ruby is spending her birthday night with her dad who takes her and a few friends and one of the parents out to a fancy dinner.  How nice for Ruby.  He has also planned a big party for her in a hotel on the weekend.  I could not afford anything like that.  I have no idea how he can, as he lives in another country, purposefully, making it legally and financially impossible for me to hold him accountable.  When you are divorced with children you are legally (and morally) required to financially disclose your income and expenses – which he refuses to do. Don’t get me started on our family legal system.  All I know is when I asked him to buy our daughter a pair of running shoes, he wouldn’t.  I have been dealing with this with him for years, and yet I am grateful. It is precisely this disgraceful, dysfunctional, pathetically easy to manipulate system, that allows mothers to be screwed, that has led me to the work I am doing with SHE’S HISTORY! I got screwed, I got mad, I got busy.  If you are interested in learning more about this, read the frighteningly enlightening  Mothers On Trial by Dr. Phyllis Chesler – a fabulous female who came to one of my New York shows.

Friday March 9^th

We celebrate my Ruby’s birthday at home with a few friends and a lovely home cooked dinner that she requested.

Sunday March 11^th SHE’S HISTORY! Show at The Lounge Theater in Hollywood

From my comments book:

Very enthralling and energetic! A wonderful way to learn about important, historical women. Kristen & Birgit (a mother and daughter that I spoke with afterwards  in the lobby.  The daughter was home from college for Spring Break and they were having a mother daughter day.  I was so honored!

Brilliant Show.  We loved it. June and Renee

Terrific Show!  Thank you. Bill B

Thank you for the enlightening show.  Better than 20 years of school… Jenny

Wednesday March 14^th Fort Ligget/Hunter Army Base

Drive the 250 miles up the coast to Fort Ligget Army Base to do the show. Arranged for Ruby to stay with our family friends – The Hessells, who live around the corner.  It takes a village and they are part of my village. Finding childcare is always tough during the school week.  Her father could not “take her” as he “had to work”.

Fort Liggett/Hunter is far away in the middle of nowhere near Monterey and San Simeon (where Hearst Castle is) on the central coast of California.   The Army is putting me up in Hacienda House, William Hearst’s vacation house, which he sold to the government. I know all about him and his property and have read about his life – particularly because of Julia Morgan, a fabulous female who was the pioneering architect who designed Hearst Castle and about 700 other buildings. I LOVE this area of California – the central coast.  But am nervous a bit about spending the night on an Army base.  I asked if I could walk around in the evening, and was told there are critters and a local mountain lion!

It is a lovely drive and I took Bruce Springsteen along with me.  The new cd was just released and he kept me great company!  After a bunch of freeways and a long dusty desolate dirt road I arrive at the base.  This is my second time on an Army Base.  This base is absolutely gorgeous, and the property is also open to the general public.  I go through the checkpoints, show my ID and find my way to lovely Hacienda House. I meet the gal who hired me – Sandy – who introduces me to Suzanne, who is in charge of food and accommodations.   I am thrilled when they show me my room, which is a lovely old-fashioned cottage style room, designed by Julia Morgan herself!

The women help me lug my suitcases and we proceed to the room I am performing in and I set everything up for the tech run through.  The walls are lined with photographs of fabulous females.  I feel so at home. I am there to celebrate and honor Women’s History Month under the Special Observances and MWR Umbrella (and budget). MWR stands for Morale, Welfare, Recreation. Suzanne asks me what I would like for dinner.  I am thinking I would like to move in!  After the tech, I get to relax and enjoy the beautiful surroundings.  Suzanne brings me a beautiful meal AND a bottle of chardonnay.  It is wine country.  I spend the evening relaxing INSIDE – and texting photos to my peeps.

Hacienda House

My room is down this walkway and to the left

DINNER!

Thursday March 15^th Show Day!

I had breakfast with a few lovely older women I met in the dining hall.  They were staying at Hacienda House, on a holiday on their way to Hearst Castle down the road.   They all met in a divorce support group many years ago.  When they learned I was the “speaker” that day and what I do, we proceeded to chat about all the fabulous females and how my divorce really inspired the show. One took my card, promising to try and get the show into her daughter’s school in Texas.  “It is so important what you do”, she says.

The show was at 11AM and once again I was honored to perform for the troops.  Afterwards, a woman came up to me with a book in her hand.  Her book that she had written; “Belva Speaks”, about Belva Lockwood, the second woman to run for president and the first woman in America to practice in front of the Supreme Court.  I was blown away to meet this fabulous female and author, Susan M. Raycraft – who loved the show.  She lives a few miles away from the base in Lockwood.  Yes the town she lives in is named after BELVA LOCKWOOD!

I was really happy to see MEN from the military in the audience.

Here are some comments from that performance:

Your presentation was fabulous! I have been to many of these Women’s History Observation events and I must admit, yours is the best!  Thanks so much! Colonel Manaois – 1^st Filipina Graduate of West Point 1986 (a woman)

Fantastic! Great articulation, great emotion – Fun involvement, and a great choice for MWR (Moral, Welfare, Recreation) to obtain your ability. Dee Dee L.

I loved your knowledge, enthusiasm and energy! How could someone not be motivated to think more about what it means to be a woman & all it entails.  Thank you for a wonderful presentation! Paula G.

Looking out at the room from my performance area, waiting for the troops...

Sandy who hired me - and I got a plaque!

Colonel Cranelle A. Manaois

A few men made a point to tell me how surprised they were by how much they enjoyed the show. Ahhhhh.  I packed up; hit the road by 2:15PM with a front seat filled with Suzanne’s yummy goodies (the show was also a brunch) which included quiche, muffins, and fruit.   Hit the Los Angeles traffic around 5PM and made it home by 7:30.

Sunday March 18^th SHE’S HISTORY! Show at The Lounge Theater in Hollywood

Here are some comments from that performance:

Thanks for putting into three lively dimensions the women who I can only pay tribute to in my Facebook History posts! David Dismore – Ms. Magazine

(David has a great Women’s History Facebook Page – check it out)

http://www.facebook.com/Equalitarian

I am so moved and inspired by your words today (and your energy).  Thank you so much for your incredible work regarding women! Gratefully, Judy W.

Terrific show!  I’ve long been interested in women’s history even though I’m male.  Wish it could’ve gone on twice as long with more of your wonderful stories! Kim Fugal

Tuesday March 20^th

Phone Interview With Maureen Cavanaugh of KPBS in support of the Woman’s Museum of California Fundraisers San Diego.  Sorry no link.

Wednesday March 21^st

Interview for Radio Or Not with Nicole Sandler (radioornot.com)

Link Coming…..

Thursday, March 22^nd My Rose’s Birthday!

I can’t believe my oldest is nineteen!  She is away at college but really liked my gifts – a purse and a maxi-dress.

Friday, March 23^rd

I drive down to San Diego for the tech rehearsal for the Saturday and Sunday shows.  (It’s never a good idea to travel on show days.) After the long ride down from Los Angeles, I was rewarded. The museum is awesome!  Fabulous females – dead and alive, surround me!  The very much alive museum director Ashley Gardner greeted me and we hugged.  I am so impressed with the fabulous women’s history space she has nurtured.  Everything looked and felt familiar to me.

The Women's Museum's Ashley Gardner

More Ashley Gardner and The Women's Museum

We traveled together the mile or so for the tech rehearsal to the downtown YWCA where the shows were being held. It is in a gritty part of town and also functions as a safe haven and resource center for abused women and families in crisis. The building is also an historic landmark and so appropriate for the show. We lugged my suitcases in and are joined by two other fabulous females – Carolyn who is on the Board and Kit, a theater maven and an old friend of mine and a new friend of  Ashley.  We all worked together, chatting and bonding and filling the space with loads of fabulous female energy.

Saturday and Sunday March 24^th and 25^th San Diego Women’s Museum of California Shows

Both were great, successful and as usual thrilling for me to perform.  San Diego is a big military and college town and both sectors were represented at the show.

Here are some of the comments from those performances:

I loved it.  As a man, we should all see this show. Damion S.

This was a fantastic performance.  You must pursue your show throughout the country.  The young women of today MUST hear what you say. Good luck!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Great script  – Fantastic Performance.  Looking forward to your next production! Thanks for bringing this to us here in San Diego. Marti K.

Great Show! You should do a performance at SDSU (San Diego State University).  (I got my minor in Women’s Studies there – one of the 1^st Women’s Studies programs in the country!) Thanks for a great show! Jerrilyn H.

I do all my own producing and promotion – only because I cannot afford a publicist or producer – yet….) and I literally emailed every history and women’s studies professor at SDSC -San Diego State University, and UCSD – University of Southern California at San Diego.  I did not get a single response.

Ready For The Audience

After the second show on Sunday afternoon, I was exhilarated and exhausted.  There is a great deal of physical energy expounded when I do the show.  I travel with a few suitcases, one with the equipment – laptop, projector, speakers, cables, and one with the props and costumes, and then there is my personal stuff.  I am grateful I am healthy and energetic enough to do it but I was wiped out.  And there was a big storm coming.  BIG STORM.  I was hoping to hit the road before it hit me choosing to weather the weather rather than find another night of care for my Ruby.  But the storm and I hit the road together.  It was the scariest drive.  Pelting rain and freeway driving – wow.  I prayed and breathed and went real slow and I made it home.

Wednesday March 28^th

Up at 4AM for a 7AM flight to New York City for the Hunter College Women’s Rights Coalition show and the fundraiser for The Museum of Motherhood.   I ship my costumes in props ahead in a suitcase but carry on my equipment and personal stuff.  Lotsa airport schlepping, but my cousin Julie picked me up at JFK airport – a very rare treat in NYC and we drove to Brooklyn and had fabulous wine and sushi!

I stay with a family friend when in Manhattan (my home town btw).  Muncie is a fabulous female in her 80s, a graphic artist, who introduced my parents to each other.  So she is to blame for a lot. She has a two bedroom apartment that I visited as a child.  I grew up with her two daughters who are  women now, and  – like me – they are in arts and education.  Randi is a visual and performing artist in Florida and Jory is a third grade teacher – in Los Angeles.  She teaches in the same school district my girls attend and her daughter and my daughter Rose both worked on the same school play two years ago! Small funny world.  I had just seen her daughter Randi for the first time in over thirty years!  I performed the show in February for the Women’s Club at my father’s retirement community in Boynton Beach and Randi drove down from Fort Lauderdale to see it.  Muncie  prepared a beautiful meal for me and we dined and hung out and it was terrific.

Thursday March 29th

Jumped through several hoops to schlep all my stuff uptown to the Hunter College East 68^th Street Campus for the tech rehearsal.  I need a roadie…..

Friday March 30^th

The show was at 7PM so I rested all day.  So tempted to take advantage of the city but I have learned I need to be very chill on show days – especially when there is jet lag, different time zones and two shows in a row.  So I rested.   It was such an honor to perform the show (in which Bella Abzug has a nice big part), in Bella Abzug’s alma mater.  What an experience!  After the show I enjoyed an utterly fabulous New York City truly authentic Italian meal.  Ahhhh.

Saturday March 31  LAST SHOW

I took a taxi to The Museum of Motherhood on East 84^th Street.  Created by Joy Rose (visionary, Ubermama and founder also of Mamapalooza) this space is my absolute favorite.  This was my second fundraiser at the museum, which is filled with all of Joy Rose’s amazing, empowering, maternal energy. She has single-handedly imagined and brought to life this museum, which she has kept alive through sheer will. The recipient of many honors, including The Susan B. Anthony Award, she is a trail-blazing pioneering super duper rocking and rolling (she also created her band Housewives On Prozak) fabulous female who – since becoming the mother of three – has devoted her life to honoring motherhood.  I performed my last show of the month at 7PM to a small but appreciative audience, which included my brother and sister and cousin.  And, Lenore DeKoven, another amazing and fabulous female.  A pioneer who was my acting teacher back in the Nineteen-Eighties in New York City, she broke barriers as the first female television director. Lenore DeKoven has produced and directed on both coasts in theatre, film and TV and has been on the film and theatre faculties of UCLA, NYU and Columbia University. She has had two books published: Changing Direction: A Practical Approach to Directing Actors in Film and Theatre, and Twilight Man.  She is also the Artistic Director of Our Workshop East. After directing me as an actress for many years, Lenore has been mentoring me ever since I became a playwright.

Museum Of Motherhood Stage

My Sister and Baby Brother

Lenore!

Joy Rose!

Afterwards, there was wine and cheese and much intellectually and emotionally stimulating conversation about the work Joy and I are doing and the work that needs to be done.  I was elated, exhausted, relieved and oh so happy! And what a treat for me to be with my family, who helped me pack up, loaded my stuff in the car and we drove downtown where we celebrated and reminisced and ATE and DRANK.  I was particularly thrilled to have my little brother (he is forty-eight) see the show.  He is a quintessential New Yorker, a guys guy if ever there was one and into cars and sports and rock and roll. “Yo, sis, dat was good.  I learned a LOTTA stuff I dint know.”

March Mission accomplished!

It was March 1^st, 2012, the first day of Women’s History Month and I was performing SHE’S HISTORY! The Most Dangerous Women in America, Then And Now… for five hundred and forty fabulous future feminists.

This was my first high school performance and what a way to start Women’s History Month!  The girls were rapt!  Rapt I tell you.  They CHEERED at our first feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft – who wrote our first feminist book – A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman – or as I like to call it Don’t Punish Me For Having Ovaries!  They loved it when I called Bella Abzug, “a great GREAT Pain In The Ass”!  They screamed with recognition at Sojourner Truth.  And they went a bit crazy when Frederick Douglass came to the SHE’S HISTORY! party.

What a joy and a surprise to get this reaction from high school students. The day before I was working on some promotional materials in my Apple Class.  My tag line is “Why do we know more about Snookie than Abigail Adams?  My trainer – a nice 30ish year old man asked, “who is Abigail Adams”? My heart sank.  The night before I was at Staples printing a photo of me and Gloria Steinem (who I got to meet again), and asked the lovely young woman helping me, “Do you know who this is?”  When she said no I said “it’s Gloria Steinem”!  She had no idea who she was.

Immaculate Heart, a private girls Catholic High School in Los Angeles, has a reputation as a rebel school.  No wonder those girls related to SHE’S HISTORY! Afterwards, several of the girls came up to me to tell me how much they enjoyed the show.  One lovely young woman gushed compliments, passionate about her desire to get “more people involved in feminism”.  I almost started crying.  Their very cool teacher Claire told me the school has a fabulous theater department (yay!) and the seniors were all taking AP History (a college prep course) and that is why so many were familiar with the women and story lines in the show. I profile, show slides, tell stories about, humanize and bring to life around 40 fabulous females – each one a rebel and each one deserving of their own show.  I am working on Victoria Woodhull’s – the first woman to run for President in 1872.  I didn’t get to perform her story for the rebels at Immaculate Heart, as I had to cut the show down to fit into their 50-minute schedule.  What a fabulous fifty minutes it was!  As Elizabeth Cady Stanton said to Susan B. Anthony – in a scene from the play -  “I am FIRED ANEW!!!”

Super bowl Sunday left me feeling decidedly hungry for something meaningful and substantive after being fed a steady stream of buy buy buy! The barrage of sexual sexist objectifying commercials left my fourteen-year-old daughter and I disgusted, so I was absolutely thrilled to read a review in the Los Angeles Times about the new Margaret Fuller biop The Lives of Margaret Fuller By Laura Skandera Trombley, Special to the Los Angeles Times February 5, 2012.

I loved the review and cannot wait to read the book and am always delighted to see ANY mention, coverage or acknowledgement of women’s roles, but I took issue with captioning the article First Modern Woman.  Hardly.  One could – and I do – argue that Margaret Brent (1601-1671) the thirty-seven year old never married first woman in America to demand the right to vote (was refused), attorney, property owning, savvy businesswoman to whom Lord Baltimore (Maryland’s Governor) gave the power of attorney on his deathbed – was our first modern woman.  The great Margaret Fuller is just one of the MANY modern woman before us who are unknown and unheralded.   (See Fabulous Female Facts http://sheshistory.com/site/?cat=7)

Fuller was easily one of the most brilliant minds of the nineteenth century, with an Oprah-like influence on women and men. She inspired her colleagues, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Nathaniel Hawthorne to write about HER. One cannot measure the influence she had on The Seneca Falls Convention – the first Women’s Convention – in 1848 including the drafting of the groundbreaking Declaration Of Sentiments.  And her influence on Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony – the greatest unknown partnership in American Women’s History and on feminism in general, is incalculable. But women of the 1600s such as Brent and Anne Hutchinson – called “The Mother of the First Amendment” – who not only stood up to the men in charge but to The Church itself – were radical, independent and challenged authority, making them thoroughly modern women.  Fuller was not the first and not the last.

Amy Simon

Cultural Herstorian

Writer/Performer SHE’S HISTORY! The Most Dangerous Women In America, Then And Now…

(310) 308-0947

Sheshistory.com

A new and dear friend recently took the plunge – for the second time.  He and his new wife met in church and are very spiritual.  I planned to give him a wedding gift of “The Gift Of The Magi” – my favorite O Henry short story, which always symbolized to me what marriage is about; devotion, sacrifice, self-less ness – and – pure love.  It’s set in the early 1900s and is about a newlywed couple. He decides to sell his prized possession – his father’s watch – to buy his wife beautiful combs for her beloved hair.   She decides to cut her hair – her prized possession – and sell it to buy him a beautiful chain for his beloved watch.  This is the gift I gave my husband when I naively and ecstatically married him. 13^th 1991 would have been our twentieth anniversary. He didn’t get O Henry. Another missed cue.

I entered marriage blindly.  My parents were married for over sixty years.  They went through everything and survived.  They fought, they threatened divorce, they were miserable – and happy?  They came out of the Depression and are Jewish so what is happy?   And they just hung in there.  They survived tragedy, job loss, three daughters, women’s lib, and addiction. They did marriage encounter, the enrichment program focusing on each other – which was major.  I am sure it was my mother’s idea.  It was the seventies. My father went through the twelve-step program over forty years ago when I was just in elementary school.  He had a gambling addiction but learned to deal with his feelings – which the recovery process forces you to do (and has not gambled since) so we went to the Gamblers Anonymous family program – and I learned a little about therapy.  I was thirty-seven years old when I met, fell in love with and married my “prince” and thought I was prepared to work on our marriage and never take it for granted. And of course, I thought it would be forever.

But now.  Wow.  Now of course, I see.  What I missed during that dizzying endorphin filled insanely romantic courtship.  Two months after our first date, we attended a wedding and got engaged when I caught the bouquet and he caught the garter. (He was separated from his first wife at the time).  It was a love cloud of ignorance and selective vision.  He was so smart, handsome, charming, British and Jewish.  There were signs, but I didn’t see that he was running away – from his country, his soon-to-be-ex-wife, and his debt.  I believed him when he told me that he was the victim of England’s bad economy and a horrible wife who did not understand him.   I was, like a criminal’s mother, in denial.  MY child/friend/school/government…. would – could NEVER do…. THAT!

Twenty years later, he has done it now in reverse:  Run back to his country and away from his responsibilities – and massive debt – here.

I did not realize the LEGAL implications of marriage.  Really. Of course, HE DID.  HE is a lawyer who knows how to work the system and he is masterful at it.  And the family legal system is so dysfunctional and pathetically easy to manipulate.  I did not understand that we were bound together. Legally.  And of course a year and a half after we married when I gave birth to our first daughter, and three years later to our second, my legal and financial fate was sealed.  Yes, motherhood sealed my financial legal bond with him – according to the court – at least until the children turned eighteen.

So I have thought so much about marriage since my divorce seven years ago.  I hate to watch weddings on TV and am completely conflicted about the institution itself.  Do I believe in it anymore?  I don’t know.  I have many – MANY – unhappily and apathetically married FEMALE friends who I have heard say they could walk away and be OK.  I watched and watch them work and struggle and argue and suffer and weigh the pros and cons of their marriage.  And I am jealous.  But many times I think, “I am SO GLAD I am not married!”

When I think, “I will never have that married forever, intimate, shared historic familial togetherness,” I am so sad.  Especially when I think about the future – looking through rose-colored glasses and seeing; the kids come over with the grandchildren and we all have dinner that I beautifully prepare with fresh herbs from the garden that maybe they planted in the same house they grew up in.  What a lovely fantasy.  And I am so envious at back to school night or a religious event, or a high school soccer game where I see couples that I have known for as long as I have been a mom.  I envy them their togetherness. Then I look again and I wonder:  “Are you happy?  Are you having sex?  Does that matter?  Do you resent and/or appreciate your partner?  Is it a good partnership?  Are you on the same page morally?  Have you grown apart? IS IT WORTH IT?  Do you fantasize (as I did) about leaving your marriage”?  These discontented married and mostly mothers -  woman friends – not all – but enough – are – and have been (as I was) feeling unappreciated, undervalued, lost, unsatisfied, and the BIGGIE – TRAPPED.   Trapped.  Just as Betty Freidan’s wives and mothers felt when she wrote about them in the groundbreaking The Feminine Mystique back in the sixties.   The book came out of writing a magazine article on woman’s roles based on a questionnaire she gave to her sister Smith College graduates at a fifteen-year reunion.  They were not happy.  They felt trapped.   Betty Freidan famously identified it as The problem that has no name.

Well, Victoria Woodhull – the first woman to run for President in 1872 – had MANY names for marriage. Slavery, monarchy, injurious, and the most terrible curse for which humanity now suffers entailing more misery sickness and premature death than all others combined. Ok, that was more than one name.  And she married three times!

And Frances Wright – the first woman to speak in public in 1828 (and got crucified for it) said: Marriage, where the law allows robbery and all but murder against the unhappy female, who swears away, at one and the same moment, her person, and her property, as but is too often, her peace, her honor and her life. She succumbed in her thirties to the marriage myth and married a French man who promptly took her vast fortune and daughter when they divorced.

And Julia Ward Howe – 1860s poet/writer/activist and mother of six who wrote The Battle Hymn of The Republic (for five bucks!) said… Marriage, like death, is a debt we owe to nature, and wrote in her diary that she

had never known her husband to approve of any of the activities that she herself valued. She woulda divorced him but back then would have lost her children.

As a Cultural Herstorian – I could go on.

So does marriage work?  How much do you have to give up?  IS IT WORTH IT – the compromise, sacrifice, constant negotiating?  I LOVE the idea of having a partner.  And I want one.  I am pretty sure I know what it takes and how to be – a good partner.  I was one for thirteen years.   I worked hard.  I kept my vows.  I was a good wife. I have had enough therapy, especially marriage counseling, to know that you have to take the whole package.  Figure out what you can live with, what you need – or as I think of it – pick your pain.

I am leaning toward what Katharine Hepburn said:  Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other.  Perhaps they should live next door and visit now and then. She was the daughter of a suffragist, a great actress and quite the adulteress.

So what to give my friend for a wedding gift?  Oy.  I just cannot decide between “The Gift of The Magi” or a California Pizza Kitchen Gift Certificate.

Sunday May 22nd
My Sunday morning audience:  Eighty beautifully dressed, red-hatted well-fed, fifty years and older lovely ladies of The Red Hat Society (www.redhatsociety.com). I booked this gig at Sze Chwan – a Chinese Restaurant in the Los Angeles suburb of Canoga Park before I was asked to perform two shows two days later in New York City – my hometown – at the Mama Expo (www.mamaexpo.com) on May 24th.  So.  Sunday morning, I load up the car, journey to “the valley” pull up, unload, am surrounded by a sea of red hats, set up, wait for lunch to be over, do the show (which went really well),

strike the set which includes the slide projector, speakers, costumes, props etcetera, get paid, load up and jump in the car – grab a sandwich and head home.  Unpack, re-pack for the New York shows and get it together.

MONDAY MAY 23rd
Wake up at 4:00AM – get to the airport at 6AM – for a 7:20AM flight – on which I get stuck in the middle seat.  Torture. But.  I am bringing my show to New York.  Wow.   Schlep schlep schlep the projector, speakers, laptop and few personal items that filled to the max the one carry-on bag and one personal item allowed (could not, would not, did not risk checking my bags).  The plan is to arrive at 4:00PM – go straight to the theater for tech rehearsal.  I am sharing the show night and the rehearsal with another play that follows mine, and we’re both on another show’s set.  For the uninformed, tech rehearsals are traditionally hell and this one did not disappoint.  Months of planning, negotiating and scheduling had gone into this one tech rehearsal. I had shipped my suitcase of props and costumes ahead to my friend Tom who kindly agreed to meet me at the theater with my show in a suitcase.  After my $55 cab ride from JFK, I checked in to the Excelsior hotel on West 81st Street (one street down from the apartment I had lived in for 10 years as a struggling actress!) and immediately lugged my suitcase to the Drilling Company Theater on West 78th.  Two long long flights up I enter the really sweet “intimate” theater.  It is perfect.  There’s Tom!  Yay!  There’s my suitcase with the cables and adaptors and costumes and props.  I begin setting up and spend an inordinate amount of time figuring out where the screen goes which determines where everything else on the stage goes – including me! The blessing and curse of running my own show is I am technologically empowered, do not have to train – or pay – anyone – to run the show, which includes about 100 slides.  There are lots of transitions, cues and music, which I run with my remote from the stage – it is truly a one-woman show.  After a very arduous and typically trying tech, we get the screen set up – the stage set up – am finally happy and immediately strike, pack up and schlep the TWO suitcases down the two flights of stairs and back to the hotel.  I am wiped out.  Dead.  And starving.  I need a glass of wine and some carbs.  The concierge suggests an Italian restaurant and after walking around trying to find a less swanky one, I go in and order my wine and pasta and – I am a new woman!  Back to the hotel – call home and get the girls on the phone.  They are three hours behind.  I was concerned because my 18-year-old, Rose, was working at Banana Republic and I hated my 14-year-old Ruby eating and being alone on a school night.  I have never left my girls alone for this long before and although I knew my “village” was right there – I still felt guilty.  Ahhh, the curse of the working mother.  But turns out Rose’s shift was changed and they were together. I am so relieved.

I re-organize all the suitcases for tomorrow’s double-header – the first show is at 11AM at the conference.  What is MamaExpo?

MAMA Expo & M.O.M. Conference: Modern Ambassador for Maternal Advancement. Raising Awareness the Museum Of Motherhood (M.O.M.) and Women, (M)others and Families Everywhere. Empowered by Mamapalooza & hosted by Marymount Manhattan University, New York Parks Dept.

The conference is organized by a magnificent magnet of all things mothers and marvelous – Joy Rose, the founder of Mamapalooza, (www.mamapalooza.com), and The Museum of Motherhood (www.museumofmotherhood.org). “Just get here, I’ll do the rest.” Joy told me back in January, when she asked me to bring SHE’S HISTORY! to the conference.  So there I was – a “presenter” at the three day Conference – right smack in the middle of all these really fascinating and accomplished and cool cool cool women http://www.motherhoodmuseum.org/ConferenceSchedule_11.html AND she got me an evening show the same night.  I got TWO slots at the conference.

TUESDAY MAY 24th
Wake up all excited.  SO excited.  Shower, Pilates, forced some breakfast down and grab the suitcases, a latte, a cab and am on my way to Marymount Manhattan College on East 71st Street.  It is almost 10AM and my cell rings.  It is 7:00AM in L.A. and it is the 18-year old.  “Mom?  I did not sleep – my throat hurts and I’m gonna kill the cat”.  She goes on for a while – I am not focusing as we are nearing the destination.  “Honey, I can’t talk. Gargle with salt and warm water, make the ginger lemon honey drink.   Feel better.”  I feel guilty as I pay the $10 fare.  The helpful young gals at the reception desk have my badge and conference bag and I ask them if they know who the first woman to run for President was.  As usual, no one knows – Geraldine Ferraro’s name is offered and I tell them a bit about the show and am escorted up to the room where I will be presenting.  It is a beautiful room.  There is Joy Rose and six or so other women sitting in a circle.  Their session before mine is still going on and it is the discussion of the ongoing activities and future of The Museum Of Motherhood.  “Come join us” Joy invites me and I can hardly focus on what is a really interesting conversation about the goals and identity and branding of this fabulous museum.  All I can think of is how long it will take me to set up the room. The session ends and I swing into action – setting up the projector, the laptop – the speakers… unpacking the suitcase and setting up the props and costumes.  A nice young college student helps me as does an old friend – Jessica – from my comedy days in NYC who is also in Mamapalooza.  A sociology professor from Hunter College arrives – she is a history buff and feminist and was told about the show.  I greet her.   A few other people show up and there is Joy right in the front row with her phone/camera and beautiful energy.  She introduces me; I take a deep breath and begin.  I love doing the show.  I love watching the audience become entertained and moved and engaged and surprised by all the information and stories.  When I finish, they applaud loud and long and we have a Q&A where older women (pioneers) in the audience typically tell me of the gender discrimination they faced in their lives and brag of their accomplishments and I am once again reminded of why I go to all this trouble.

But – no time for glory basking.  Must turn the room over, so while Joy gets us lunch, I unplug, strike, and pack up, all the while trying to chat with the Hunter College professor who is blown away and keeps telling me what a wonderful teacher I am and that “your performance was an example of creative teaching at its best.”   I am so moved.  We talk about Sojourner Truth (who of course is in the show) and the power of theater.  I feel like I always do after a performance of SHE’S HISTORY!   So high.  So so high.  There is no drug like post performance.

Joy returns and we sit with her conference partner – Lynne – another fabulous female and we talk about how exhausted we are and how fabulous but ambitiously planned and amazingly executed the conference turned out to be.  A beautiful colorfully dressed woman comes in and Joy introduces us.  She is Barbara Glickstein – one of the next presenters.  (Barbara is an RN, MPH, MS, Co-Director of the Center for Health, Media and Policy at Hunter College, a public health nurse, broadcast journalist and global activist).  Joy tells her about SHE’S HISTORY! and when asked which women are in my show (there are about 30) I hand her my playbill.  “Oh”, she says, perusing it.  “Lucretia Mott.  I know her great-great-great-granddaughter” and proceeds to tell me about the yardstick that Lucretia’s father – Thomas Coffin – used to measure cloth.  I am now literally hyperventilating as I ask, “does she live here?” And the next thing I know she promises to try and e-connect us.

Time to go – grab another cab back to the hotel where I return calls, check emails, and actually rest for the two hours until the next show.  I refuel with the help of Starbucks and schlep schlep over to The Drilling Company Theater.  It is 6PM.   Lug lug up the two long flights and no one is in the theater.  Yay!  I set up in silence, happy for the peace and focus.  After a bit I am joined by the owner, Hamilton Clancy, and two theater lovers bond.  Then Joy and Lynne arrive with the wine and cheese.  Sebastian – who is running the lights – arrives and we go over my opening cue.  The audience is now squeezing into the teeny tiny lobby. Space in New York City is the ultimate commodity.   It is 6:40 and I am ready. We need to open the house.   In my Bella Abzug costume, I grab the remote, which I use to run the show, and bolt for the tiny backstage room.  Shut the door.  This is the hard part now.  Waiting.  Waiting and hearing the audience milling and murmuring just on the other side of the door which I open a crack and sneak peeks as friends and family and colleagues make their way up the stairs to be greeted by Joy and Lynne who offer wine and cheese. I love a well-fed slightly buzzed audience. The energy is electric.  I am pacing in circles when I spot the framed poster on the wall.  It is a quote by Margaret Mead.  “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” I am immediately moved to tears. This quote closes the show.  It is a sign.  Grabbing my flip, and with an emotional commentary, I shoot the sign.

It is show time.  Joy has done the intro.  “They are all ready for you,” she says.  I enter the theater, click my remote for the first musical cue (“Que sera sera”) and here we go. The place is packed.  I do my thing and I love it.  They seem to love it too.  As I perform I spot all sorts of people.  My sister Barbara, my former acting teacher Lenore who is helping me develop the show, my friend Jimmy from Long Island who taught me how to French kiss when I was fifteen; my old boyfriend and his lovely girlfriend.

I take my bow – make my speech thanking everyone for coming and explain how I have to turn the theater over immediately to the next show.  With the help of my friend Doug, we strike my stuff and minutes later I am outside with a glass of wine enjoying my friends and sister and so so so happy.

(left to right) Robin – the lovely girlfriend of my former boyfriend Twad (yes that is his name), Twad, Doug, my sister Barbara and behind her Joe- her husband, Tom Corozza, friend Amy Stiller, ME, old friend Bob Greenberg, friend Terrie Mintz and her friend….

WEDNESDAY MAY 25th
Wake up still so so so so happy and craving pancakes.  Grab some and another cab and hightail over to the conference.  It is the last day and the only day for me to attend any sessions.  It was so hard to pick and choose but I chose Elena Skoko.  Here is the description.

Memoirs of a Singing Birth. Singer and artist Elena Skoko shares her life and discoveries on the path to motherhood that takes her from Croatia to Rome, from Rome to Bali in search of the perfect birth. Memoirs of a Singing Birth is a story of a personal quest for natural birth that ends up in a rural village in the heart of the island of Gods with the help of ‘guerrilla midwife’, Ibu Robin Lim. While giving birth, this rock ‘n’ roll woman sang! Her path to motherhood is exotic, adventurous, unusual, but also witty and deeply emotional. This is a story that will leave a trace in your heart changing your perception of birth forever, whether you’re expecting children or not. Memoirs of a Singing Birth is also a personal research of contemporary and forgotten birth practices. You will find out how the author and newborn mother succeeds to overcome the labor pains by using her voice, a practice much easier than one can imagine. The e-book describes in detail and with photos the practice of lotus birth. But most of all, this is a magic love story about a woman, a man and their child. Memoirs of a Singing Birth is published on Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/27398

She sat behind a desk in a classroom and mesmerized me with her story, her singing and especially the bit about eating placenta. She shared the session with writer/performer Anna Fishbeyn
who – like me – has a one-woman show “Sex In Mommyville”.  Here is HER description:

“Sex in Mommyville”. Anna Fishbeyn will perform an excerpt from her show, and discuss the challenges mothers face in maintaining “healthy” sex lives.  “Sex in Mommyville” is a feminist comedy-drama about a neurotic, guilt-ridden, health-conscious, sex-starved Manhattan mom trying to please her high-maintenance children, her lawyer-husband Zeus, and her Russian parents who live upstairs. Add to this mixture failed sex attempts and an article for Bitch Magazine raging against myopic, media-engendered stereotypes and double standards, and you’ve got a fearless portrayal of modern motherhood caught between Feminism and Bridalplasty! www.Sexinmommyville.com

I was SO worried when she began as she was dressed very sexy in a short skirt, fishnet stockings and high heels.  But she totally blew me and everyone else away with her brilliant take on contemporary motherhood and society’s objectifying and devaluing women. I wish I could see the WHOLE show, which she is doing in July at  Manhattan Repertory Theatre.

Anna, Elena and me

The next session was with keynote speaker Phyllis Chessler.
Author of 13 books, feminist, activist and blogger, Phyllis has been active in the women and mother’s movement her entire adult life. This is her third M.O.M. Conference

Mothers On Trial. This is the 25th anniversary edition with eight new chapters. It is still the first and only book of its kind, a book that looks at how women mothers, what happens when good enough mothers are custodially challenged – often by very violent husbands and fathers who prevail more often than not, and whose cause is often assisted by the court system itself. The book documents the heroism and connectedness of mothers, even under tortuous siege. Also this new edition includes chapters which look at legal trends (1986-2011), legal torture, a new chapter about Fathers’ Supremacists groups, an updated international custody chapter, two new chapters about court-enabled incest, a new introduction, a new resources section, and a new closing chapter interview with a leading Manhattan divorce lawyer: “What To Expect When You’re Expecting a Divorce.”

What can I say?  She was brilliant, articulate, passionate, funny, honest, angry and an adoring grandmother!  I could relate so much and felt so validated and supported, as I believe all the mothers in the room felt.  As I have learned from performing “Cheerios In My Underwear” my play about motherhood, there is something so wonderful about being a in a room with people who are going through the same struggle.

Phyllis Chessler and Me!

Maternally and culturally nourished, I went on the next – and last – session of the day.

Ali Smith: Book author, photographer

Momma Love: How the Mother Half Lives. Societies need healthy mothers in order to survive, but they rarely know how to take care of mothers’ needs properly. Momma Love looks at the varying degrees of support that women receive from partners, lawmakers, employers and each other. Photographer Ali Smith shares photographs and the very personal stories of her subjects. The mothers depicted range from famous actors to a survivor of incest who is struggling to put the shattered pieces of herself back together so that she may parent her son well. Through the anecdotal evidence revealed in these women’s stories, greater truths about the way mothers are living and are treated in western society are revealed.

I loved getting to know Ali – who – like me – spent many years in the sexist, ego-driven, male dominated often morally bankrupt music business.  She was in a band; I worked in promotion.  She gave me a signed copy of her wonderful first book “Laws of the Bandit Queens -Words To Live by from 35 of Today’s Most Revolutionary Women”.   What a cool book filled with some of the women I portray in my show and whom she interviewed including Geraldine Ferraro, Pat Schroeder and Alice Walker!  Ali showed us a presentation of her upcoming project Momma Love – about motherhood.

It all ended to soon and exhausted but totally inspired and emotionally overwhelmed – but in a good way – I hugged and kissed all the fabulous females I met and bonded with and hit the hot and crowded streets of Manhattan.

THURSDAY MAY 26th
I chilled.  I just chilled.  The whole damned day.  Ahhhhhh.

FRIDAY MAY 27th
DID YOU HEAR?  I HAD A BEER WITH LUCRETIA MOTT’S…..
Great-great-great-great-granddaughter.  I still cannot believe it. Who is Lucretia Mott?  An extremely fabulous female who has a BIG part in my show and in women’s history!  Huge!  A founding mother, famous abolitionist, ordained Quaker minister  – one of the first women in America to preach in public (Anne Hutchinson tried it in the 1600s and she – the mother of the first amendment – was literally run out of town). After a few emails, Lucretia Coffin Mott’s great-great-great-great granddaughter Marianna invited me to her home.  I was so excited I could barely speak. When I emailed asking if I could I bring her coffee, she replied:  “Too damned hot for coffee.  Bring some chips.  We’re having ale”.

Ale?  Ale? With Marianna Mott?  I am plotzing, kvelling, freaking out.  I arrive at her loft, she buzzes me up and I see a mezuzah on her door – which is a sign that a Jew lives there.  A Jew?  Lucretia Coffin Mott was a famous Quaker.  A Jewish Quaker?  Could she get any cooler? A beautiful blonde woman younger than I greets me.  I see Mott in her face.  I feel I am in the presence of royalty.  She turns out to be a gracious, warm, lovely smart, feminist mommy and total girlfriend.  I fall in love with her.  We drink the ale, we eat the chips, we get to know each other.  She shows me Lucretia’s father’s yardstick.  It is engraved Thomas Coffin with the year 1797.  I am moved to tears.  I’m such a wimp. I have never been in the presence of such an artifact.  She shows me more things, a book with letters between Lucretia and her husband James.  Some photographs and an award her teenage son (a history buff!) received.  It was The Mary Wollstonecraft Award for Excellence In History.  Mary Wollstonecraft – our first femisnits writer of also has a nice part in my show.  The whole intense trip was worth this afternoon.  An hour flies by.  We promise to keep in touch and I float away.

Marianna Mott, the Yardstick and me

Marianna Mott, The Yardstick, a picture of Lucretia, and me

I subway it to the Upper West Side where I hit Zabar’s (the greatest deli on Earth) and stock up on bread and cake. I meet my former acting teacher Lenore DeKoven, who takes me out to a real nice Upper East Side restaurant for a real nice dinner. We discuss the future of SHE’S HISTORY!  Lenore is a tough cookie with the highest of standards and has supported this project from the start.

I leave for home the next day.  Sitting in a quiet JFK Airport on the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend, sipping wine, I am absolutely struck with what I have accomplished.  Three shows, two days, two states, three venues, no roadies, no problems and I am still miraculously alive. This was the first time I brought a show to New York.  The first time I did not SEE a show in New York.  The first time I went to New York and did not have a pizza or knish or Chinese food.   Instead, I did a show – or two, felt more proud of myself than I can articulate and – I had a beer with a Mott.