March is Women's History Month!!!!

[Zimmeh]

I have to say:

My Mom
Maya Angelou and
The lady who was at the Reunion two years ago! That woman brought me to tears.

Zimmeh

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by Zimmeh

I have to say:

My Mom
Maya Angelou and
The lady who was at the Reunion two years ago! That woman brought me to tears.

Zimmeh

[alexri]

Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to run the Boston Marathon in 1967 as a numbered entry. She registered under the gender-neutral "K. V. Switzer."

Race official Jock Semple attempted to remove her from the race, and according to Switzer said, "Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers." However, Switzer's boyfriend Tom Miller, who was running with her, shoved Semple aside and sent him flying. The photographs taken of the incident made world headlines.

[MarquisdeShey]

Maria Luzinete Santos - Midwife/Healer - My grandmother.


Dilma Rousseff - First Brasilian Female President



Rigoberta Menchu - Nobel Peace Prize Winner



Pat Mora - Latina Literature Writer

[The_Lady_Snow]

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, became the first Hispanic woman and first Cuban American to be elected to Congress. She was elected in August 1989 in a special election and continues to serve.

[Soon]

Fazlalizadeh is an oil painter / illustrator whose work focuses on portraiture and social/political themes and her street harassment art. Her art has been making appearances in the Bed-Sty neighborhood of Brooklyn. The website, Stop Harassment recently interviewed Fazlalizadeh about her work:

Stop Street Harassment (SSH): What inspired your art project about street harassment?

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh (TF): The project was inspired by my daily experiences with street harassment. Being harassed on the street is exasperating. I’ve wanted to do some art work on the issue for a while now, but I couldn’t figure out how to properly communicate what I wanted to say in my primary artistic medium – oil paint on canvas. Over the past year or so I’ve started working in public art as a muralist. Thinking about creating art in a public space led me to this idea of wheat pasting posters. Because what better medium to create art about street harassment than street art.

SSH: Some of the prints are up on walls around Philadelphia, right? How many did you put up and how did you select where to post them?

TF: Philly, yes. As well as other places that I’m often in, mostly Brooklyn and other parts of NYC. This project is still very new and I plan to continue it and expand it, that includes venturing to different cities. I’ve placed them in areas that receive foot traffic, areas that I’ve personally been harassed, and spots that work well for wheat paste.

SSH: What reactions have you received from people who’ve seen them in person and from people who saw them on your Tumblr page?

TF: I’ve received a lot of positive reactions from women who relate to the captions on the posters. I’ve been having a lot of conversations, and a few debates, about street harassment as a result of this. I wasn’t sure what to expect because the state of this medium is very temporary; it’s likely to put up a piece and for it to be gone a few days later. So to have the pieces captured and widely shared online was surprising but, I’m also very happy about that.

To learn more about Fazlailizadeh, visit her websites:

http://tlynnfaz.com/Stop-Telling-Women-to-Smile & http://fazstreetart.tumblr.com/

[Zimmeh]

Gracias!!!! Loving me some Dorothy Allison!

Zimmeh

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

[Kobi]

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Women in the Balkans are leading a political revolution.

Historically given little say in the politics of the conservative region, they are increasingly taking top leadership posts, signaling that the traditional rules are changing as Balkan countries shake off their war pasts and move toward membership in the European Union.

During the bloody 1990s, many in the Balkans turned to warrior leaders, mostly male nationalists they thought would protect them from the ethnic conflicts that flattened cities and left over a hundred thousand dead. The new millennium has brought crisis in a different form: economic doldrums, naggingly high unemployment and glaring political corruption.

Encouraged by the EU and influenced by closer ties with the West, more and more it is women who are stepping in to change the old ways of doing business in the macho Balkans. Some see women as less nationalistic and more attuned to the needs of a new era — diplomacy, consensus, and compromise.

"Women have always been more successful than men, with all due respect," said Duska Latinovic, a nurse from the Serb-controlled part of Bosnia. "Women are ... more sensitive, stronger, emotional, and in these rough times people need more of a heart."

Although overall gender equality standards are still far from those in Western democracies, strongly patriarchal Kosovo and the post-war Serb mini-state in Bosnia have both installed women in their top positions. Male-dominated Serbia and Montenegro have passed laws to increase the numbers of women in leadership positions, part of a slate of efforts to convince the EU they belong in the bloc.

"The power of women in the politics is a soft power," Atifete Jahjaga, the female president of Kosovo told the AP. "It is a positive change that our country and other countries in the region ... are making by giving a chance to women."

The latest political newcomer is the charismatic 43-year-old financial expert Alenka Bratusek, Slovenia's first ever female prime minister. While Slovenia has traditionally been more socially liberal than the rest of the Balkans, Bratusek's election last week was significant because it came at a moment of deep financial and political turmoil in the small Alpine state.

A rising star among veteran Slovenian politicians, Bratusek has been entrusted with consolidating the nation's economy and restoring confidence in state institutions, which have been badly shaken by the EU's broader financial crisis.

"It is important that this happened at a sensitive moment, a period of crisis," sociologist Milica Gaber Antic said. "It's a strong message to other women: 'We women can do it!'"

Many women leaders are already being lauded for steering their countries through the storms.

Croatia's former Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, took over the premiership in turmoil after her predecessor Ivo Sanader was forced to resign in 2009 in a whirl of corruption scandals, and then wrapped up her country's accession talks with the EU.

In 2011 in Kosovo — where Parliament members were recently issued notebooks with an assortment of sayings including one saying that "silence is the only treasure a woman possesses" — the little-known Jahjaga was elected the first ever female president, part of a U.S.-brokered compromise that put to a rest the bickering between political groups dominated by formal rebel fighters and murky business leaders.

Last week in the ethnically Serb mini-state in Bosnia another little-known female politician, Zeljka Cvijanovic, was proposed as the new head of government after the previous Cabinet resigned. That would make her the first ever woman to lead the government in any of the country's many levels of power-sharing, where no ministry in the central government is headed by a woman.

"As a woman, I hope to add a new flair and a new dimension to the institutions of Republika Srpska," she said in an interview.

Women accounted for only 1.6 percent of Serbia's Parliament in 1990, the lowest rate in Europe. But with strongman Slobodan Milosevic ouster in 2000 and the country's efforts to join the EU, the proportion of women has soared to 20 percent. Serbian law now calls for every third candidate on an election list to be a woman — a rule requested as part of EU reforms.

It isn't always the same story across the region. During the communist rule that followed World War II, authorities promoted women's inclusion in politics as part of the communist agenda of gender equality. At the time women served at top positions in the governments and were granted equal rights, jobs, salaries and education.

Bulgaria, for example, had the highest percentage of working women in the world in the 1970s, and women in top offices include the vice president, the parliament speaker, four ministers, and the mayor of the capital city, Sofia.

But, old habits die hard. Kosovo's Minister for European Integration Vlora Citaku acknowledged that "it is almost impossible to forget even for a moment that I am a woman — I've been reminded of that every day since I became a minister."

She said that being a woman in the male-dominated politics is "a tough life."

"First of all they ask you are you married? What your dad think of you traveling alone surrounded by all men?," she scoffed. "I mean, it's all these stereotypes ... There are certain duties that a woman must do in order to be 'complete.'"

And in Slovenia, shortly after Bratusek won Parliament's approval, political opponents tweeted that "her mandate will be as long as her skirt."

Bratusek responded simply: "I wish we women were no longer judged only by the length of our skirts."

http://news.yahoo.com/women-emerge-c...073239728.html

[Kobi]

KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) — It's the world's highest glass ceiling. Of the 3,755 climbers who have scaled Mount Everest, more than half are Nepalese but only 21 of those locals are women.

Aiming to change the all-male image of mountaineering in their country, a group of Nepalese women have embarked on a mission to shatter that barrier by climbing the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents.

The women, aged between 21 and 32, have already climbed Everest in Asia, Kosciuszko in Australia and Elbrus in Europe. They are preparing to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa to mark International Women's Day this week.

"The main goal of our mission is to encourage women in education, empowerment and environment," Shailee Basnet, the 29-year-old team leader, said before leaving for Africa.

Women in this Himalayan nation rarely got the chance to climb because they were confined to their homes while their husbands led expeditions or carried equipment for Western climbers, Basnet said.

It was only in 1993 that a Nepalese woman — Pasang Lhamu — first reached the 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) summit of Everest. She died on the descent.

According to Ang Tshering of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, Nepalese women had traditionally expressed little attraction to mountaineering.

"It is only recently that women have shown interest," Tshering said.

Since they climbed Everest in 2008, the women have spoken in more than 100 schools across Nepal to tell students about their mission.

"We are hoping to attract more women to mountaineering, both as a profession and as a hobby," said Pema Dikki, 25, another member of the team.

Basnet said the response to the Everest climb encouraged them to push ahead.

"After Everest, we felt that we needed to go beyond the borders, so we decided to travel to all seven continents to climb the highest mountains there," Basnet said.

Basnet said the team members have spent their savings, taken out loans and sought sponsorships to finance their expensive gear, climbing permits and plane tickets.

The team plans to speak to students while in Africa to spread their theme, "You can climb your own Everest," to encourage girls to stay in school.

The team will be joined by two women from Tanzania and one from South Africa during the Kilimanjaro climb.

Nepal has eight of the 14 mountains that are more than 8,000 meters (26,240 feet) in height.
..

For Women's History Month our lovely Blackpool Tower is clothed in pink lights

(yeah there's issues about associating pink with women but what the heck, they don't know any better...the heart is a permanent feature)

Last month for Gay History Month she was a rainbow.

[The_Lady_Snow]