March is Women's History Month!!!!
 

Who are the women you admire??

Maya Angelou
 

“Women should be tough, tender, laugh as much as possible and live long lives.”

~ Maya Angelou

Oh this list could get really long:

Anna Nieto Gomez, activist/scholar
Anna Nieto Gomez was one of the most articulate and outspoken Chicana feministas since the early days of the movimiento chicano. Nieto Gomez launched an early and enduring critique of the Chicano movement for ignoring women's issues. She founded an early feminist journal, Encuentro Femenil, in which she and other Chicanas spelled out an inclusive Chicana/o agenda, including issues around childcare, reproductive rights, and the feminization of poverty.

Dr. Nieto Gomez was just here last week lecturing to my MAS365 class. She is incredibly warm and caring and took time to meet with each of us individually. I was on cloud nine the whole time.

Cherrie Moraga, writer/poet/activist/playwright
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Cherrie Moraga is a prolific, award-winning Chicana writer/activist/poet/ playwright. Her many published works include Loving in the War Years/Lo Que Nunca Paso Por Los Labios, Cuentos: Stories by Latinas, and The Last Generation. Three of her plays are published in Heroes and Saints and Other Plays by West End Press. She is also co-editor of the pivotal Chicana feminist text, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, both the English and Spanish versions (co-authored separately with Gloria Anzaldua and Ana Castillo). Cherrie has taught drama and writing courses at various universities across the nation, and is currently a faculty member at Stanford University. Her newest play, Watsonville, enjoyed a successful run in San Francisco last year.

Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez, Professor of Chicana/o Studies
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Dr. Broyles-Gonzalez was invited to a White House ceremony by President Bill Clinton and the First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on the 35th anniversary of the signing of the Equal Pay Act: June 10, 1998. The White House ceremony highlighted Professor Broyles-Gonzalez' historic 1996 lawsuit which challenged the unequal pay of women professors at the University of California, and was settled in October of 1997. Her victory places UC discriminatory actions within permanent court scrutiny and custody, and is an enduring marker in the struggle for womens rights. Professor Broyles-Gonzlez is a Yaqui-Chicana native of the Arizona-Sonora borderlands with a doctorate in German Studies from Stanford University. In 1985 she became the first woman of color to receive tenure at the University of California in Santa Barbara; she advanced to full Professor in 1991. In 1996 she received the lifetime Distinguished Scholar Award from the National Association for Chicana/o Studies. Her most recent book El Teatro Campesino: Theater in the Chicano Movement has received broad critical acclaim. (submitted by Dr. Antonia Castaneda, St. Mary's University)

This woman has moved me in ways I can't quite articulate because I will start crying. She is by far the most insirational professer I have ever had the pleasure of studying under. Together we are collaborating in bringing Pululaw Khus to the UofA to lecture about maintaining her Chumash indigenous heritage during a time of slavery in California.

Gloria Anzaldua, writer/activist/scholar (d. 2004)
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Gloria Anzaldua was a Chicana tejana lesbian-feminist poet, writer, and scholar who played a fundamental role in the development of Chicana feminist theory in the 1970s and beyond. She was co-editor of three of the most influential publications in the emergence of Chicana feminisms: This Bridge Called My Back:Writings by Radical Women of Color, Haciendo Caras/Making Face, Making Soul: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color, and Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Gloria's work theorized a "borderlands" that was historically and geographically situated in the U.S. Southwest, as well as a metaphorical borderlands that encompassed the lives and desires of those marginalized by the power structures of U.S. society.

Professor Sandra Soto
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Sandra K. Soto is Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson. She holds a PhD in English, with a focus in Ethnic and Third World Literature, from the University of Texas at Austin. Her book Reading Chican@ Like a Queer: The De-Mastery of Desire (2010), replaces the race-based oppositional paradigm of Chicano literary studies with a less didactic, more flexible, framework geared for a queer analysis of the discursive relationship between racialization and sexuality. Her interdisciplinary research and teaching interests are in Chicana/o and Latina/o literary and cultural studies, feminist theory, gender studies, and queer theory. She is currently working on a book tentatively titled Feeling Greater Mexico, which mobilizes queer theories of affect to pursue unlikely connections between critical transnational studies and U.S. ethnic studies. In 2010 she and Miranda Joseph received the National Education Association Excellence in the Academy Award in Democracy in Higher Education for their essay “Neoliberalism and the Battle over Ethnic Studies in Arizona.” At the University of Arizona, she is an Executive Committee Member of the Institute of LGBT Studies and an affiliate of English, the Center for Latin American Studies, and the Mexican American Studies and Research Center.

Sandy is my inspiration and th reason I am pursing a daul graduate degree in Mexican American Studies. She is incredible!

I would like to pay deep respect and homage in his thread to Native American women. Without them I would never have learned about the powerful female force in all of creation that has been lost and neglected for thousands and thousands of years. Also, without them as guides, interpreters scouts and negotiators for peace and unity, I sincerely believe this country would have never been settled.

I remember the brunches and beer nights we'd throw when I was co-leading the Women's and Gender Studies students union at my university. :) Some of the guests we attracted at the local level were astounding - you don't have to look further than your own city, sometimes, to find women who ought to make history!

Happy Women's History Month! Enjoy it. :) Be proud.

Margie and Pino
 

two women come to mind for me personally

Margie and Pino, aka Mamma and Pops to all of their *children*

Two dear lesbians who were inseparable as first a couple, then friends. They shared a house for over 30 years. Lovers came and went but the rules were clear, Margie and Pino were going to live under the same roof.

They owned the first gay bar in our Parish in LA.

They owned many more after that and only employed gay women. They took in the dykes who were thrown out by family, the addicted and homeless dykes... with a couple of rules,, get clean and work and you are family. For the rest of their lives those same dykes took care of them as they got older and needed help. This was their only real family.

Margie, "Pops", the butch of the two, was the security and Pino was the cute little femme firecracker who people say i remind them of. Pino loaned out money and kept journals of the comings and goings of everyone, who came in, who was courting who, who took a loan, who paid a loan, all the goings on from the neighborhood bar. Women danced together, they were raided, they were arrested.. they still kept on. They also started the first all women parades in their area for Mardi Gras... their Mardi Gras Balls were butch femme style, complete with tux and ball gowns.. the photos were magnificent!

They retired at about 55 and enjoyed a ranch for a while, then a house in the suburbs where all their *family* lived... by now they were content sitting out on the back deck as people stopped by... a quiet life after all those crazy years in the 60 -70's. Happy knowing most all the young dykes they helped back in the day were now full functioning adults who still loved them.

They were older when i met them and i fell in love with them both. Pino was become frail and need help. Margie's health was failing too and she could not take care of Pino as much as she wanted to, so their *children* took turns going to the house to help, i went every weekend to do housework and help bathe Pino. Pino loved to swim and while in the tub loved to show off her moves.. in her day she was a swimming instructor.. she taught kids in wheelchairs how to swim..after a bath you would end up as soaked as she was and afterwards she liked to powder herself in Jean Nate... the woman had a smile on her face constantly, even in her dementia she was happy as a clam. She loved seafood so i would bring her some, peeling it as fast as she could wolf it down. When not well we would bring her to the facility for a short stay, and then anxiously awaiting her return to their home. We brought all of her bedding from home so she would not be too afraid, and we took turns going to feed her as she would just forget to.

Their home consisted of all of the signs and decor from the gay bars, shelves full of the journals that Pino kept. FORTY years of memories and wonderful times. How awesome it was to sit down and read a journal and the good times that were had. All in Pino's penmanship.

Then we heard there was a storm coming, as a group we decided that we had to evacuate and this time we could not bring Pino, she was incontinent and the last time we evacuated with her, it was very hard and ended up having to find somewhere for her to stay because sitting on the interstate was too much for her. We chose the place that she always stayed at when she had an illness. They promised to take good care of her, and we expected to pick her up in a few days. Kat brought her there, i went to New England. The last thing Kat said Pino said was *why are you leaving me here and when are you coming back?*

Kat took Margie and the rest of the clan to Texas.. little did we all know what would happen.

Katrina came with all her might and the levees broke, Pino and Margies house was completely underwater, only the tip of the roof was not under.
Everything, every momento was gone. The journals, the photos, everything.

Pino's caretakers decided to evacuate themselves from the hospital, they placed all of the patients, all 11 of them on the 3rd floor, gave them all the meds they had come there with and left them there. The water went to the 5th floor. We did not know Pino was murdered until 2 weeks later. She was euthanized and all i can think of is praying that she was unconscious when the water came. If free, she would have swam out of there i am sure of that. It tooks months to get her body from the morgue for burial, it was horrible. Her funeral was anything but deserving and i didn't make it back for it. i hid as far as i could so i didn't have to think about it.

Margie had to be told that she had lost her lifemate to the storm and the people we trusted with her. Margie lasted a couple of years but was never the same and of course Kat, the one who left Pino there suffered major depression and till this day blames herself, although we made a decision as a group. Life will never be the same. Margie was also buried without much fanfare, and by now only a few people knew of how wonderful these two women were.

Pino's legacy was one of a brave woman who didn't care what would happen to her if she helped out people who needed help. She started a movement that allowed other gay women to own and operate businesses.

Many people owe their life to this 5 foot nothing 100 pound powerhouse and it really, really bothers me that she died that way. She and the other people that were there with her, deserved better.

The caretakers were charged with murder but they beat the charges.

Pino still lives in the people she helped and in me, i will never, ever forget her smiling face.

Sorry for the ramble but i felt i had to share this.

Mama's Obit
 

What a legend she was :)


Rosemary "Mama" Pino |

Rosemary Pino ""Mama'' tragically departed this world to meet her Heavenly Father on Monday, August 29, 2005 during Hurricane Katrina. Throughout her life, Mama was a pioneer for rights of the gay and lesbian community. In addition, she worked diligently for human rights and AIDS. With her beloved business partner and devoted partner of 56 years, Margie Norman, they owned and operated numerous gay bars including, The Grog, De Ja Vu', Pino's, The Blue Odyssey, and Club 621. Prior to the bar business, Pino worked for Hibernia Bank and Camp Leroy Johnston. Mama was heavily involved with the gay carnival organizations. A member of A.G.G.I., honorary mom for the Krewe of Polythemus and the Krewe of Armenius, she also served as a board member for the Krewe of Ishtar (an all women's gay club). Standing only five feet high, Mama's distinctive laugh and bubbly personality made her appear to be six feet tall. She volunteered for The Lighthouse for the Blind and taught blind children to swim. She loved to swim and played softball until she was forty years old. Mama fought for the underdog and often adopted gay kids whose parents had disowned them. She supported her friends and everyone who ever met her adored her and her fun loving spirit. Mama enriched other's lives and will be sadly missed by her partner, Margie Norman; close personal friends, Bonnie, Kathy, Dee, Sis, Cindy, Sue, Judy, Rusty, Mark, Keith, Linda, Beverly, and Anisha; and countless other friends.

Off the top of my head...

My Mother, My grandmother, Tia Damaris...
I'll have to think on the Notable Women besides them...

Susan B Anthony
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Sojourner Truth
Virginia Woolf
The Bronte Sisters
Jane Austen
Hillary Clinton
Janet Reno

Happy International Womens Day!!
 

rawrrr!!!
 

--Teresa Mahieu
 

The beauty of a woman
Is not in the clothes she wears,
The figure that she carries,
Or the way she combs her hair.

The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes,
Because that is the doorway to her heart,
The place where love resides.
The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole
But true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul.

It is the caring that she lovingly gives,
The passion that she shows,
And the beauty of a woman
With passing years only grows!

It has almost been 40 years since she beat this guy!!!
 

Billie Jean King

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Florence Nightingale - a fascinating woman!

Lena Horne - one of my favorite singers.

Frida Kahlo
 

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Lesbian rights pioneers Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon formed the Daughters of Bilitis in 1955. Together for 51 years, they became the first same-sex couple to obtain a marriage license and marry in the United States Feb 12, 2004.