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WOW2: September 2023 Women Trailblazers and Activists - 9-17 thru 9-23 [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-09-16  

September 15 to October 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month. The Theme for 2023 is “Prosperity, Power and Progress.”

Why do you think I write these feminist songs, to try and teach myself to respect myself. You know, it's not because I'm a hero. – Ani DiFranco, Singer-songwriter, poet, founder of Righteous Babe Records ______________________

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WOW2 is a four-times-a-month sister blog to This Week in the War On Women

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“My father was a physicist and also an activist. My first public protest was with my dad at Stanford. I came by all that honestly.”

– Joan Baez, Singer-Songwriter, Peace & Social Justice Activist, Daughter of a Mexican-American Activist

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“Suppose there was an awful big snake down there on the floor. He bites you. Folks all scared, because you may die. You send for doctor to cut the bite; but the snake rolled up there, and while doctor is doing it, he bites you again. The doctor cuts out that bite; but while he’s doing it, the snake springs up and bites you again, and so he keeps doing it, till you kill him. That’s what Master Lincoln ought to know.”

– Harriet Tubman, Black Underground Railroad Conductor, Abolitionist, and Feminist

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The purpose of WOW2 is to learn about and honor women of achievement, including many who’ve been ignored or marginalized in most of the history books, and to mark events in women’s history.

These trailblazers have a lot to teach us about persistence in the face of overwhelming odds. I hope you will find reclaiming our past as much of an inspiration as I do.

THIS WEEK IN THE WAR ON WOMEN will post shortly, so be sure to go there and catch up on the latest dispatches from the frontlines.

Many, many thanks to libera nos, intrepid Assistant Editor of WOW2. Any remaining mistakes are either mine, or uncaught computer glitches in transferring the data from his emails to DK5. And much thanks to wow2lib, WOW2’s Librarian Emeritus.

Note: All images and audios are below the person or event to which they refer.

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September 17, 1580 – Charlotte Brabantina of Nassau born; her mother died when she was two, and after her father died in 1584, she and her sisters went to live with their stepmother Louise de Coligny at the court of Henry IV of France. Charlotte was married to Claude de La Trémoille, 2nd Duke of Thouars, at age 18 in 1598. They had four children. Claude died in 1604, and she never remarried. She divided her time between the Thouars castle, the French royal court, and the Dutch court in The Hague, often serving as a mediator. She participated in the negotiations that resulted in the Treaty of Loudun in 1616, and Louis XIII appointed her to chair the synod between the French reformed churches in Vitry in May–June 1617. She was sometimes referred to as a ‘femme d’Etat’ – the equivalent of homme d'État (a statesman).

September 17, 1802 – Mercy Jackson born, American physician; American trailblazer in the field of medicine. She graduated at age 17 from a private school in her hometown of Hardwick, Massachusetts, and accepted a winter teaching position in Plainfield, over fifty miles west of her hometown — a daring decision for a young woman in 1819. She was married in 1823, but her first husband died in 1829, and two of her three children had died of illnesses by 1832. She and her second husband, Daniel Jackson, had eight children, but half of them died in infancy or early childhood. Her husband’s cousin married Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the Jacksons became well acquainted with the Transcendentalists of Concord. She began to study on her own the new system of homeopathic medicine, and then tried treating her family and friends, with good results. Word of her success spread, and patients began to come from the surrounding towns to consult with her. But no treatment worked on her second husband, who died of cancer in 1852. Mercy Jackson, inspired by Elizabeth Blackwell (the first woman to earn a degree in conventional medicine in 1849), enrolled at Boston’s New England Female Medicine College and graduated in 1860, at age 58. She became friends with Harriet K. Hunt when Hunt was refused admission to Harvard because she was a woman, and they were both increasingly involved in the struggle for women’s rights. Jackson’s medical practice also grew, bolstered by her higher success rate, and the many women who preferred to be seen by a woman doctor, especially when pregnant. In 1871, Jackson was the first woman admitted to the American Institute of Homeopathy. She wrote articles about better medical treatments for women in homeopathic journals, and in favor of women’s rights in Lucy Stone’s feminist weekly Woman’s Journal. In 1875, the 73-year-old Jackson traveled from New England to northern Michigan by train, speaking for women’s rights. She died in December 1877 at age 75.

September 17, 1849 – Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery with her brothers, but they insist on returning because of their families; Tubman soon escapes again, this time on her own. She became the most successful ‘Underground Railroad conductor’ and made 19 trips back to the South to lead over 70 slaves to freedom. During the American Civil War, she served as a scout and spy for the Union Army. Tubman later became an activist in the women's suffrage movement, and when the National Federation of Afro-American Women was founded in 1896, Harriet Tubman was the keynote speaker at its first meeting.

September 17, 1862 – On the same day as the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in U.S. military history, the largest civilian loss of life during the American Civil War went almost unnoticed. With so many men away fighting the war, dangerous jobs normally done by men and boys were being done by women and girls at the Allegheny Arsenal in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania. 158 of them were making thousands of cartridges daily for the Union Army’s rifles and pistols. On September 17 around 2 PM, the lab exploded. The explosion shattered windows in Lawrenceville, and was heard in Pittsburgh, over two miles (3 km) away. Col. John Symington, the Arsenal’s Commander, rushed up the hillside toward the lab. As he ran, he heard a second explosion, followed by a third, as barrels of gun powder ignited, and cartridges ricocheted. Firefighting equipment and a bucket brigade tried to douse the flames. Pittsburgh’s volunteer fire company arrived to help, but the lab was smoldering rubble. 78 female workers, including children, were killed, and many others seriously injured. 54 unidentifiable bodies were buried in a mass grave in the Allegheny Cemetery. The exact cause of the first explosion is not known, but was probably a spark from the metal shoe of a horse harnessed to a delivery wagon, igniting gunpowder that leaked as the barrels were moved to the delivery platform. In 1928, a new monument was dedicated in the Allegheny Cemetery listing the names of the 78 victims of the disaster.

September 17, 1866 – Mary Burnett Talbert born, African-American orator, suffragist, and reformer; worked to develop black women leaders and women’s clubs, early advocate of women of all colors working together for women’s rights.

September 17, 1867 – Vera Popova born, one of the first Russian women chemists, and the first Russian woman to write a chemistry textbook; Popova was also the first woman to die in a laboratory explosion in 1896, while attempting to synthesize methylidynephosphane, which was not successfully synthesized until 1961 (it was prone to spontaneous combustion at room temperature).

September 17, 1888 – Michiyo Tsujimura born, Japanese agricultural scientist and biochemist; first woman in Japan to earn a doctorate in agriculture. Tsujimura's research career began in 1920 when she joined Hokkaido Imperial University as an unpaid laboratory assistant. Tsujimura and her colleague Seitaro Miura discovered vitamin C in green tea in 1924, and published an article titled "On Vitamin C in Green Tea" in the journal Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry. Tsujimura’s thesis titled "On the Chemical Components of Green Tea," earned her a doctorate in 1932. She registered a patent on her method of extracting vitamin C crystals from plants in 1935. She was awarded the Japan Prize of Agricultural Science in 1956 for her research on green tea and was conferred the Order of the Precious Crown of the Fourth Class in 1968. She died at age 80 in June 1969.

September 17, 1900 – Lena Frances Edwards born, African American physician; after graduating from Howard University Medical School in 1924, she married fellow medical school graduate Keith Madison, and they moved to Jersey City NJ. She became speaker on public health and advocate for natural childbirth, and served the European immigrant community, until joining the staff of Margaret Hague Hospital in 1931. However, her race and gender prevented her from being admitted to residency in obstetrics and gynecology until 1945. In 1954, she returned to Howard University Medical School to teach obstetrics, and became the medical adviser to the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, and chair of the Maternal Welfare Committee of the Washington DC Urban League. Edwards helped found Our Lady of Guadeloupe Maternity Clinic in Hereford Texas in 1960 to serve Mexican migrant worker families. After a heart attack in 1965, she returned to Washington, where she worked for federal agencies until she retired in 1970.

September 17, 1900 – Martha Ostenso born, Norwegian American novelist and screenwriter; her family emigrated from Norway to Canada, then moved to the American Midwest. Ostenso briefly attended the University of Manitoba, then left for New York City. She worked for a time as a social worker, but became involved in literary circles. Her first and best-known novel, Wild Geese, was a best-seller in 1925. In 1931, she became an American citizen. She wrote numerous short stories, moved to Hollywood to write screenplays, and published 15 novels.

September 17, 1900 – “Hettie” Hedwig Weitzel Ross born in New Zealand, Australian teacher and political activist. She was a leader of the Australian Militant Woman’s Group, and edited several political publications, including Young Communist. Ross was an advocate for the children of the poor, and cited education as key to raising them out of poverty. She was active with the Federated Seaman’s Union of New Zealand while still at Wellington’s Girls’ College, and co-founded the Communist Party of New Zealand with the union’s leader, Fintan Patrick Walsh. In 1921, she was arrested for selling a copy of an Australian publication, the Communist, to an undercover policeman. Peter Frazer, a Labour Party Member of Parliament (later New Zealand’s Prime Minister/1940-1949), took her case. Four years earlier, he had been convicted of the same offense, and served twelve months in jail. He called Ross a "young girl on the threshold of womanhood," and said she was a victim of unfair police officiousness, but Ross was convicted of selling seditious literature. She was expelled from Wellington Teachers' College, where she was studying for an education degree. When her family emigrated to the U.S. in 1921, she had difficulty getting a passport, so in 1922, she moved to Australia, where her communist views were more acceptable. She married Hector Ross in 1923, then earned a diploma in Education from the University of Sydney in 1926. She and Herbert divorced, childless, in 1931, and she taught in Sydney schools until her retirement in 1956.

Ross speaking at a public meeting of the Australian Militant Woman’s Group in 1929

September 17, 1907 – Elizabeth Enright born, American children’s book author and illustrator, short story writer for adults and literary critic; her book Thimble Summer won the 1939 Newbery Medal, and Gone-Away Lake was a runner-up for the 1958 Newbery Medal. She was also a multiple O. Henry Award winner for her short stories.

September 17, 1916 – Mary Stewart, born as Mary Florence Rainbow; bestselling British novelist and poet, pioneer in the romantic mystery genre; her Merlin series has elements of both historical and fantasy fiction.

September 17, 1918 – Lea Gottlieb born in Hungary, Israeli fashion designer and co-founder of the Gottex Company. She and her husband immigrated to Israel in 1949, and opened a raincoat factory near Tel Aviv with money borrowed from family and friends. After months and months of no rain in Israel, she sold her wedding ring to buy fabric, and with a borrowed sewing machine started designing and making high-fashion beachwear and bathing suits, founding Gottex in 1956 – the company’s name is a combination of Gottlieb and textile –which became the leading exporter of fashion swimwear to the U.S.

September 17, 1922 – Naomi Datta born, British geneticist; working at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School at Hammersmith Hospital in the 1950s and early 1960s, she identified horizontal gene transfer as a source of multi-antibiotic resistance in bacteria, the first time it had been shown outside Japan. In later years she published many important studies on the occurrence and significance of drug resistance plasmids in enterobacterial infections. Datta retired in 1984 and became emeritus professor of microbial genetics at the University of London. In 1985, she was elected to fellowship of the Royal Society. She continued to learn: at age 75, she earned a master's degree in human evolution from the University of London’s department of anthropology. She died at age 86 in 2008.

September 17, 1931 – Anne Bancroft born; versatile American actress; winner of two Tony awards (for Two for the Seesaw and the stage production of The Miracle Worker), an Oscar for Best Actress for the film of The Miracle Worker, two Golden Globes (one for her performance in The Graduate), three BAFTA awards, two Primetime Emmys, and a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress in The Pumpkin Eater. She is one of only 24 actors to win Broadway’s Tony award, an Academy Award, and an Emmy award – called the “Triple Crown” of Acting. She was married to Mel Brooks from 1964 until her death, from uterine cancer, at age 73 in 2005.

September 17, 1936 – Jennifer Dickson born in South Africa; British-Canadian photographer and printmaker. She served an apprenticeship in photography with Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17 in Paris, and held her first solo exhibition in London in 1962. She taught a graduate-level program in printmaking and photography at the Brighton College of Art in England until 1968, when she went to Jamaica. She emigrated to Canada in 1969, where she became director of the graphics program at the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts in Montreal. Her work is included in the collections of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and the National Gallery of Canada. In 1976, she was elected a Royal Academician (RA) by the Royal Academy of Arts. To date, she is the only Canadian so honored. Dickson was named to the Order of Canada (CM) in 1995.

September 17, 1939 – Shelby Flint born, American singer-songwriter; known for her songs “Angel on My Shoulder” and “Cast Your Fate to the Wind.”

September 17, 1944 – Jean Ellen Taylor born, American mathematician, professor emerita at Rutgers University. After undergraduate studies at Mount Holyoke College, she earned a M.Sc. in Chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley, but switched to mathematics, transferring to the University of Warwick to earn a second M.Sc. in Mathematics. She completed her doctorate at Princeton in 1972. She worked on the mathematics of soap bubbles and of the growth of crystals. In 1976 she published the first proof of Plateau's laws, a description of the shapes formed by soap bubble clusters that had been formulated without proof in the 19th century by Joseph Plateau. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Women in Mathematics, the American Mathematical Society, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

September 17, 1947 – Tessa Jowell born, Baroness Jowell; British Labour Member of Parliament (1992-2015); Lord Temporal member of the House of Lords (2015-2018); Minister for the Cabinet Office (2009-2010); Minister for the Olympics (2005-2010); Minister for Women (2005-2006).

September 17, 1947 – Gail Carson Levine born, American young adult author. Her first book, Ella Enchanted, was a 1998 Newbery Honor Book; she worked for 27 years for New York state as a welfare administrator, helping people find jobs, but took a class in writing in 1987, and wrote manuscripts that were all rejected until 1996, when Ella Enchanted was accepted for publication.

September 17, 1953 – Rita Rudner born, American comedian and humor book author; co-author with her husband of several screenplays, including the script for the film Peter’s Friends; she holds the record for the longest-running solo comedy show in Las Vegas.

September 17, 1968 – Cheryl Strayed born, American novelist, essayist, and memoirist; noted for her 2012 memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.

September 17, 1978 – Sheeri Cabral born, database administrator and architect; a MySQL community contributor, and first Oracle ACE Director for MySQL. Cabral was the keynote presenter for the 2009 MySQL User Conference & Expo, “How to be a Community Superhero,” and a three-time winner of the MySQL Community Award.

September 17, 1980 – Shabana Mahmood born in Birmingham, England, of Pakistani heritage; British Labour politician and barrister, a graduate of Lincoln College, Oxford. Mahmood has been a Member of Parliament since 2010, one of the first three women Muslim MPs in Britain. Served on the new House International Trade Select Committee (2016-2019), and as a member of Labour’s National Policy Forum.

September 17, 1982 – Hope Larson born, American illustrator, graphic novelist, comic book artist-author, and founder of Tulip Tree Press; known for the DC Comics Batgirl series (2016-2018); her graphic novels Salamander Dream and Gray Horses, and her Four Points and Eagle Rock series.

September 17, 2019 – Barbara Van Rooyan, a crusader against Opioids since the death of her 24-year-old son Patrick in 2004, when he took a single OxyContin pill after drinking a couple of beers, then suffered respiratory failure in his sleep because he turned out to be opioid intolerant. In 2007, three executives of Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to federal charges related to their misbranding and marketing of OxyContin. Purdue paid fines totaling $634 million, but the executives served no time, and the company was allowed to continue aggressively marketing its product. In 2005, sales of OxyContin reached $2 billion. By 2017, nearly 68% of the more than 70,000 recorded deaths caused by overdoses involved opioids. Van Rooyan said, “I never really thought a whole lot about evil before this all happened. But to see this kind of malevolence or disregard for human life — I don’t know what else to call it but evil.” Van Rooyan sees the outcome of a recent court case in Virginia is a small step toward justice. A tentative mass settlement of over 2,000 lawsuits against Purdue would include $3 billion from the Sackler family, which owns the company. The family’s estimated worth is $13 billion, most of it from the sale of OxyContin. Purdue filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and the Sacklers would relinquish ownership. But in a cruel irony, if the settlement does go through, much of the payout would be financed by profits from the continued sale of OxyContin, under a new company to be formed following the Chapter 11 bankruptcy. However, several states which already have suits against Purdue are expected to contest the deal. For Barbara Van Rooyan, at least “The lid is off, and all this stuff is bubbling out.” She added, “Do I want the records to be public? Do I want these people to have their business shut down? Yes, I do. But more than vindictiveness, I want that money of theirs to go to treatment and rehab. If that happens, something good can come out of it.”

September 17, 2020 – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stepped up his campaign to change the U.S. approach to human rights, reframing them as “unalienable rights” rooted in American traditions, with a particular emphasis on religious freedom. Since establishing a commission on unalienable rights, made up mostly of religious conservatives, the secretary of state had its report formally adopted by the State Department in August, 2020, in spite of widespread objections from human rights groups because it established a hierarchy of rights, downgrading the status of issues like a women’s right to reproductive health and LGBTQ+ rights to a second, optional tier. They also point out that it legitimizes claims by authoritarian regimes that rights are based in national traditions. “Pompeo has ramped up his efforts around this commission,” said Molly Bangs, director of Equity Forward, a reproductive rights watchdog organization. “Other foreign governments are now armed with this blueprint, the commission’s report, which they can feel free to use to rubber-stamp their own very concerning human rights practices.” In emails and meetings, Pompeo urged State Department staff to use the report to guide their daily work. Pompeo, when asked about how the new approach affected LGBTQ+ rights, his response was “these things are up for debate.” The section on reproductive health in the previous policy document was renamed “family planning” and made no mention of abortion. It emphasized “communication between spouses regarding fertility, finances, and household issues.” In response, 15 Democratic senators wrote to the USAid acting administrator, John Barsa, saying the policy paper was “riddled with shortcomings and problematic characterizations of fundamental rights.” The senators wrote, “It is a stark demonstration that politics have overtaken principle at USAID under this administration and compromised the agency’s mission.” Pompeo also sought international support, attempting to gain allies in changing the UN’s long-standing declarations and policies. The U.S. circulated a declaration to member states calling on them to sign it and “recommit ourselves today to the Declaration [the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights] and its foundational ideal that certain principles are so fundamental as to apply to all human beings, everywhere, at all times.” By ignoring all the work done by the UN in the 72 years since the original declaration, his declaration would leave out treaties and conventions which established committees on the elimination of discrimination and violence against women, against torture, and the committee on the rights of persons with disabilities. Louis Charbonneau, UN director of Human Rights Watch, said, “We don’t want to turn the clock back to a time before there were these important protections.” Rori Kramer, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, now director of U.S. advocacy for American Jewish World Service, said, “From day one when Pompeo announced this, the intention was always to change the actual working policy of the department to fit his narrow religious views in a way that really upends the normal working order of the department ... The human rights officer in the embassies has always historically been the person that supports the human rights activists, supports the LGBTQ activists who have been jailed by their authoritarian government and sort of stands with those people ... They’re sending a very clear message they want that to change.”

Molly Bangs — Rori Kramer

September 17, 2021 – In Afghanistan, the Taliban have effectively banned girls from secondary education, by ordering high schools to re-open only for boys in the coming week. Secondary schools have been closed for the past three weeks. “All male teachers and students should attend their educational institutions,” the statement said. The future of girls and female teachers was not addressed. The edict makes Afghanistan the only country on earth to bar half its population from getting a secondary education. During the Taliban’s previous rule (1996-2001), “Education and literacy are so strongly valued in Islam that the Taliban could not ban girls’ schools on Islamic grounds, so they always said they would open them when security improved. It never did. They never opened the schools,” said Kate Clark, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, who was working in Afghanistan then. Some Afghan women have started running small private classes in their homes for girls. A few schools for girls run by charities still exist in the provinces, but Afghanistan’s only boarding school for girls abruptly relocated to Rwanda in August 2021. Shabana Basij-Rasikh, the school’s co-founder, escaped with 250 students and staff. Just before they left, Basij-Rasikh was seen in a video, widely shared on social media, burning class records to avoid Taliban recriminations. In a tweet, she urged the world to “not avert your eyes” from the millions of girls left behind. “See those girls, and in doing so you will hold those holding power over them to account.”

Kate Clark and Shabana Basij-Rasikh

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September 18, 1587 – Francesca Caccini born, Italian composer, singer, lutenist, poet, and teacher, known by the nickname “La Cecchina.” One of the most well-known and influential female European composers between Hildegard of Bingen and the 19th century. Her work, La liberazione di Ruggiero, is considered the first opera by a woman composer.

September 18, 1858 – Kate Booth Clibborn born, English Salvation Army officer, daughter of William and Catherine, dubbed "la Maréchale." She, with a few sister missionaries, brought the Salvation Army to France and Switzerland, meeting fierce opposition in both countries. At the beginning of her mission in France, she often came back from preaching on the streets bruised and bleeding, and had to pin on her bonnet strings instead of sewing them because men came up behind her and tried to use them to choke her.

September 18, 1888 – Toni Wolff born, Swiss psychologist. She worked closely with Carl Jung, and was his sounding board for many of his theories. She published little of her own ideas, her best-known work being an essay on four “types” or aspects of the feminine psyche: the Amazon, the Mother, the Hetaira, and the Medial (medium). Wolff acted as senior editor for Jung’s papers, and taught the training seminars for analytical candidates at the C. G. Jung Institute.

September 18, 1889 – Doris Blackburn born, Australian activist, social reformer, and Member of Australia’s Parliament (1946-1949), the first woman elected to the Australian House of Representatives as an independent. She was an advocate for Aboriginal rights, and co-founded the Aborigines Advancement League and the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement. Blackburn later served as president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

September 18, 1891 – Harriet Maxwell Converse, a white American woman, named as a chief of the Six Nations Tribe at Towanda Reservation in New York in honor of her untiring efforts on their behalf to gain U.S. citizenship and other benefits.

September 18, 1905 – Agnes de Mille born, influential American dancer and choreographer; best known for the ballet Rodeo, and for her choreography of the musical Oklahoma!, in which she integrated dancing into the storyline, advancing the plot and illuminating the characters’ feelings instead of being separate “set pieces.”

September 18, 1912 – María De la Cruz born, Chilean women’s suffrage activist, publisher-editor of the magazine Luz y sombra (Light and Shadows), radio journalist and political commentator; founder of the Feminine Party of Chile. The first woman elected to the Chilean Senate (1953), but was accused of smuggling watches from Argentina, indicted and stripped of her position, even though nothing was ever proved against her, and the accusations are now seen as purely politically motivated to remove her from the Senate.

September 18, 1917 – June Foray born, American voice actress best known as the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel, in a remarkable career that began in radio and spanned 80 years. She voiced Natasha of Boris and Natasha; Nell Fenwick; Lucifer the Cat from Disney’s Cinderella; and Nagaina the Cobra in Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, among dozens of characters. In the 1960s, Foray was a pioneering and passionate advocate for the preservation and promotion of animation, credited with establishment of the Annie Awards, and a prime mover behind creation of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Famed animator Chuck Jones said, "June Foray is not the female Mel Blanc. Mel Blanc was the male June Foray."

September 18, 1919 – Dutch women win the right to vote.

September 18, 1923 – Bertha Wilson born in Scotland, Canadian jurist and the first woman Puisne (not a senior or chief justice of a court) Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada (1982-1991); first woman appointed to the Court of Appeal for Toronto (1975-1982); first woman associate, then partner at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt (1958-1975), where she created the first in-firm research department in Canada.

September 18, 1925 – Dorothy Wedderburn born, British academic administrator, applied economist, sociologist, and women's rights advocate. She made significant contributions to reorganising the University of London in the 1980s: Principal of Bedford College (1982-1985); after it merged with Royal Holloway College, she was the first principal of the merged college (1985-1990). She was head of the Department of Social and Economic Studies (1978-1981) at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London. She supported a coalition of women's groups fighting to increase the participation of women in the professions, more employment opportunities, and pay equity after WWII.

September 18, 1929 – Nancy Kassell Littlefield born, producer-director of documentary programs; Director of NYC Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting (1978-1983).

September 18, 1937 – Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri born, South African politician and teacher; served twice as Acting President of South Africa, first in 2005 when both President Mbeki and his Deputy President were outside the country, and for 14 hours in September 2008, between Mbeki’s resignation and Kgalema Motlanthe taking the oath of office; Minister of Communications (1999-2009). She was in exile from 1965 to 1990. Based in Zimbabwe, she worked as a teacher, and for the UN Institute for Namibia as a lecturer and registrar, and earned her Ph.D. in sociology from America’s Rutgers University.

September 18, 1946 – Meredith Oakes born, Australian playwright and music critic, primarily worked in London. Her plays include The Neighbor; The Editing Process; Scenes from the Back of Beyond; and Mind the Gap. She wrote the libretto for the opera The Tempest, loosely based on Shakespeare’s play.

September 18, 1948 – Lynn Abbey born, American computer programmer, fantasy author and anthology editor; known for Daughter of the Bright Moon.

September 18, 1949 – Dr. Mo Mowlam born, British Labour politician; first woman Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1997-1999), overseeing the negotiations which led to the Good Friday Agreement, and was instrumental in restoring the IRA ceasefire; Member of Parliament (1987-2001); after her retirement in 2001, she became a vocal critic of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and took part in anti-Iraq war protests. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1997, which she kept quiet as long as possible, before dying in 2005.

September 18, 1950 – Anna Deavere Smith born, actress and playwright; founding director of the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue at New York University; noted for writing, and starring in her one-woman “documentary theatre” shows, including Fires in the Mirror; Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992; The Arizona Project; and Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education. Recipient of the 2013 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize.

September 18, 1950 – Siobhan Davies born, British modern dance choreographer; founder of the Siobhan Davies Dance Company in 1988; two-time winner of the Laurence Olivier Award for outstanding achievement in dance.

with Robert North — Siobhan Davies

September 18, 1960 – Carolyn Harris born, British Labour politician; first woman Deputy Leader of Welsh Labour since 2018; Member of Parliament since 2015. She campaigned successfully for a governmental Children’s Funeral Fund, established 2017-2018 to help parents with the high costs of funerals.

September 18, 1970 – Aisha Tyler born, African-American comedian, director, and talk show host. She won a Daytime Emmy Award for co-hosting The Talk (2011-2016), and directed the short independent film The Whipper, and the feature film Axis, released via video-on-demand in 2018. She does volunteer work for the American Red Cross, The Trust for Public Land, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the International Rescue Committee.

September 18, 1971 – Jada Picket Smith born, African American actress, screenwriter, producer, business woman, and songwriter for the heavy metal band Wicked Wisdom. She opened a music company, 100% Women Productions, in 1994. Picket Smith was an executive producer on the series Hawthorne (2009-2011) in which she also played a leading role.

September 18, 1981 – Lucy Aharish born, Arab-Israeli news anchor, reporter, and television host; first Muslim Arab presenter on mainstream Hebrew-language Israeli television. Since 2018, she has been a news anchor on Reshet 13, after previously being the morning anchor on a current-affairs show, a news presenter, a reporter, and a co-host on a radio programme. She and Jewish-Israeli actor Tsahi HaLevi kept their relationship secret for four years before they got married in 2018, fearing harassment. Their marriage did cause a public controversy, with one Knesset member criticizing it as “assimilation” while several others congratulated them, and called the criticism “racist.”

September 18, 2019 – Khalda Saber, Sudanese teacher and outspoken women’s rights activist, was arrested and jailed in January 2019. After her family was threatened by paramilitary forces, they went into exile in Egypt just two days before strongman Omar al-Bashir was deposed in an April 2019 coup d'état. Sudanese Women Action (SWA), a women’s rights group, has documented violence against women during the protests both before and after al-Bashir lost power. Their report says that women protesters faced an “unprecedented amount of violence and human rights violations” that amounted to “serious atrocities.” Twelve women and a 7-year-old girl were killed in the protests. The report also documents 26 cases of rape as security forces broke up the protest camp outside the military headquarters in June 2019. Dozens more rape cases weren’t reported or documented “due to fears of reprisals or stigma,” SWA alleged. Khalda Saber says “It was not strange to see so many women at the front in the marches. This is because of growing awareness of women’s rights. Women in time realized they have to stick to their demands.” A still-fragile democratic transition government offers some hope. Several women have been appointed to the interim government, including Sudan’s first woman foreign minister, and two women to an 11-member sovereign council, but as of 2022, none of the perpetrators of violence have been held accountable.

September 18, 2020 – Human Rights Lawyer Amal Clooney resigned from her position as the UK’s special envoy on media freedom, in protest of Boris Johnson’s threat to override Britain’s international treaty obligations in the EU withdrawal agreement. In her resignation letter, addressed to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, she said, “I have been dismayed to learn that the government intends to pass legislation – the internal market bill – which, if enacted, would, by the government’s own admission, ‘break international law’. I was also concerned to note the position taken by the government that although it is an ‘established principle of international law that a state is obliged to discharge its treaty obligations in good faith’, the UK’s ‘parliament is sovereign as a matter of domestic law and can pass legislation which is in breach of the UK’s treaty obligations.’ Although the government has suggested that the intended violation of international law is ‘specific and limited’, it is lamentable for the UK to be speaking of its intention to violate an international treaty signed by the prime minister less than a year ago. I am disappointed to have to do so because I have always been proud of the UK’s reputation as a champion of the international legal order, and of the culture of fair play for which it is known. However, very sadly, it has now become untenable for me, as special envoy, to urge other states to respect and enforce international obligations while the UK declares that it does not intend to do so itself.” Lord Keen, the UK government’s law officer for Scotland, had already resigned because of his opposition to the bill, a week after the government’s chief lawyer, Jonathan Jones, stepped down as ministers prepared to publish the legislation. Clooney’s letter was released through the International Bar Association in London. David Neuberger, chair of the independent High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, said, “I support her principled response to the shameful attitude of the UK government to its international treaty obligations in the internal market bill and in ministerial announcements that it is prepared to break international law.” In spite of the controversy, the bill became law in December 2020.

September 18, 2020 – Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died at age 87 from complications of pancreatic cancer. She was the first Jewish woman and the second woman to serve on the Court. Ginsburg spent much of her legal career as an advocate for gender equality and women's rights, winning many arguments before the Supreme Court. She volunteered as an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, was a co-founder of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, a member of its board of directors, and one of its general counsel in the 1970s. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where she served until her appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1993.

September 18, 2020 – The United Nations marked the first International Equal Pay Day. Globally, despite decades of activism, and dozens of laws on equal pay, women still earn less than men do. For women with children, women of colour, women refugees and migrants, and women with disabilities, the gap is wider. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a message, “Women’s jobs are less likely to come with benefits like health insurance and paid time off. Even when women are entitled to a pension, lower salaries mean lower payments in their old age ... We need to ask why women are relegated to lower-paid work; why professions that are female-dominated have lower salaries – including jobs in the care sector; why so many women work part-time; why women see their wages decrease with motherhood while men with children often enjoy a salary boost; and why women hit a ceiling in higher-earning professions ... We need to recognize, redistribute, and value the unpaid care work that is disproportionately done by women.” He also stressed that “The COVID-19 pandemic has exploited and exposed inequalities of all kinds, including gender inequality. As we invest in recovery, we must take the opportunity to end pay discrimination against women ... Equal pay is essential not only for women, but to build a world of dignity and justice for all.”

U.S. workers

September 18, 2021 –T he Taliban continues to restrict women's rights in Afghanistan. Kabul’s interim mayor announced female employees in the city’s government must stay home unless their work cannot be replaced by men.

Afghan Women protest against work ban

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September 19, 1426 – Marie of Cleves born, German princess, poet, songwriter, and a patron of letters who commissioned many works. In 1440, she became Duchess of Orléans by marriage at age 14 to Charles, grandson of the French King Charles V. Marie’s son became King Louis XII of France. Her husband, 32 years her senior, died in 1465. In 1480, she secretly married the Artesian (French) Sieur de Rabodanges, who was one of her gentlemen of the chamber, and several years her junior. She died at age 60 in 1487.

September 19, 1883 – Mabel Vernon born, American Quaker pacifist and national leader in the U.S. suffragist movement; a principal member of the Congressional Union for Women Suffrage. With major figures like Inez Milholland and Alice Paul, she was an organizer of the 1913 Woman Suffrage Parade and of the Silent Sentinels, the six-day-a-week picket of Woodrow Wilson by Suffragists in front of the White House (later moved to Lafayette Square) from January 1917 to June 1919.

September 19, 1887 – Lovie Austin born, American bandleader, pianist, and composer-arranger; considered one of the best women jazz blues piano players of the 1920s.

September 19, 1889 – Sarah Louise Delany born, African American civil rights pioneer and educator; first black teacher of high-school-level domestic science in New York public schools; she and her sister are the subjects of the oral history, Having Our Say, by journalist Amy Hill Hearth. Delany lived to be 109 years old.

September 19, 1893 – New Zealand women win the right to vote by Royal Assent of the governor to the Electoral Act of 1893. All New Zealand women, including the Māori, may vote. New Zealand becomes first independent country in modern times to enfranchise women. However, New Zealand women were not eligible to run for office until 1920.

New Zealand women voters at the polls in Auckland

September 19, 1894 – Rachel Field born, American novelist, poet, and children’s author; best known for Hitty, Her First Hundred Years, winner of the 1930 Newbery Award, and also named to the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, for books considered worthy of placement “on the same shelf” as Carroll’s Alice; Time Out of Mind won an inaugural National Book Award in 1935, for Most Distinguished Novel.

September 19, 1904 – Karen Aabye born, Danish historical novelist, journalist, essayist, and travel book author. She was a journalist in Paris and London before her historical novels featuring strong-willed women became popular. Aabye was a member of the Danish resistance group ‘Holgar Dankse’ (named for a Danish folklore hero) during WWII. Her house was dynamited in 1944 by the Brøndumbande terror group who sympathized with the Germans, but she not at home at the time. Known for her trilogy Det skete ved Kisum Bakke (It happened at Kisum Bakke), Fruen til Kejsergården (The Lady of the Emperor) and Vi, der elsker livet (We Who Love Life). Her collected essays were published as Fra mit skovhus (From my forest house) in 1968.

September 19, 1911 – Judith Vallentun Auer born, German resistance fighter against the Nazi regime. She joined the Young Communist League of Germany in 1924, married Erich Auer, a worker in the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1926, and became a member of the KPD. When Hitler seized power in 1933, the KPD was banned. After her daughter Ruth was born in 1929, she learned typing and shorthand. She found work at Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG, producer of electrical equipment) in the cable works division, first as a short-hand typist, and later as a buying agent. At AEG, she came in contact with the resistance group led by Fritzs Plön, who was a welder. Auer managed the finances of the resistance group, and used her buying trips for AEG to do courier work, establishing links with other resistance groups, especially Theodor Neubauer in Thuringia, a state that became a Nazi stronghold early in the 1930s. She hid the Communist politician and resistance fighter Franz Jacob in her flat for several months after he fled from Hamburg. Auer was arrested at her workplace in July 1944, and later tortured. She was sentenced to death and hanged in October 1944.

September 19, 1911 – Jane Oppenheimer born, American embryologist and science historian who studied fish embryos and investigated similarities and differences between fish, avian, and amphibian species. She sent embryos into space with the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission to study effects of zero gravity on embryonic development. She was also a major patron of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

September 19, 1915 – Elizabeth Stern born in Canada, American pathologist; pioneer in work on cell progression from normal to cancerous. Her breakthrough studies of cervical cancers showed that a normal cervical cell advanced through 250 distinct stages before becoming cancerous, so it is the most easily diagnosed of all cancers. Stern was the first to link a virus in herpes simplex to cervical cancer. She was also the first to report a possible link between oral contraceptives and cervical cancer.

September 19, 1917 – Amalia Hernández Navarro born, Mexican ballet choreographer; pioneer in developing baile folklorico, and a Mexican cultural icon. In 1952, she founded the world-renowned Ballet Folklórico de México. Originally there were only eight dancers, but the company grew to 60 performers by 1959, and was commissioned to represent Mexico at the Pan American Games in Chicago, Illinois. She created over sixty baile folklorico works. Hernández also founded the Folkloric Ballet School in Mexico City. She was knowledgeable about pre-Columbian culture, and used elements from Mexico’s diverse cultural heritage, including specific regional folklorico traditions, in her choreography.

September 19, 1918 – Pablita Velarde born as Tse Tsan (Tewa for ‘Golden Dawn’), American Santa Clara Pueblo ‘flat style’ painter; at age fourteen, she was one of the first female artists accepted to Dorothy Dunn’s Santa Fe Studio Art School. Velarde learned to prepare paints from natural pigments for her later work, which she called ‘earth paintings.’ Commissioned in 1939 by the U.S. National Park Service, under a grant from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), to depict scenes from Pueblo life for the Bandelier National Monument. In 1953, she was the first woman recipient of the Grand Purchase Award at the Philbrook Museum’s annual Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Painting, and in 1954, Velarde was among twelve Native American artists and craftsmen honored by the government of France with the Palmes Académiques, the first foreign honors ever paid to Native American artists. She published Old Father the Story Teller, featuring six Tewa tribal stories, in 1960. Honored as a Santa Fe Living Treasure in 1988, and by the National Women’s Caucus for Art with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990.

September 19, 1929 – Marge Roukema born, American moderate Republican politician, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1981-2003) from New Jersey. She was frequently challenged by more conservative male Republicans in the primaries, but continued to be reelected, until she decided not to run for a 12th term in 2002 after her district was gerrymandered in favor of conservative voters. She refused to endorse Scott Garrett, the conservative Republican who won the primary to succeed her. Marge Roukema died of complications related to Alzheimer’s disease in 2014, at age 85.

September 19, 1930 – Bettye Lane born, American photojournalist who covered the American feminist movement, donating over 1700 images and her collection of ephemera, all documenting the women’s movement from the 196os to the 1980s, to the Schlesinger Library; her work is also preserved at the Library of Congress and the NY Public Library.

Bettye Lane: Women Electrical Workers — Bella Abzug throws hat in mayors race — March for Equality

September 19, 1932 – Stefanie Zweig born, German Jewish writer and journalist; best known for her novel Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa), a bestseller in Germany, based on her early life in Kenya, where her family had fled to escape persecution by the Nazis.

September 19, 1939 – Louise Botting born, British radio presenter and journalist, became one of the first women directors on the board of an FTSE-100 (Financial Times Stock Exchange Index) company, when she was appointed to the board of AVIVA, a multinational insurance company. In 1970, she began writing articles for the Daily Mail newspaper. She was the founding presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Money Box programme (1977-1992?), a financial advice programme aimed at “ordinary people,” which is still on the air. Among her many appointments to various boards and committees, she was a member of the Top Salaries Review Body (1987-1994). She was honored as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CPE) for her service.

September 19, 1940 – Zandra Rhodes born, English fashion designer; her 1977 collection, called Conceptual Chic, featured beaded safety pins and dresses with holes. She founded the Fashion and Textile Museum, which opened in London in 2003.

September 19, 1945 – Kate Adie born, English television and radio journalist; as chief news correspondent for BBC News (1980-2003), she frequently covered war zones and terrorist attacks; presenter for From Our Own Correspondent on BBC Radio 4 since 2003.

Kate Adie at Tiananmen Square

September 19, 1947 – Torunn ‘Teri’ Garin born, Norwegian chemical engineer, one of the developers of aspartame sweetener as a sugar substitute while working for General Foods (1971-1985), where she became a senior laboratory manager. Earlier, she researched ways to minimize water pollution caused by food production. She co-patented an adsorption process to extract caffeine from coffee (1978) and a method to derive food dyes from natural sources to replace possibly cancer-causing synthetic dyes (1983), including non-toxic betanin, a natural red pigment from red beets. These U.S. patents were assigned to General Foods.

September 19, 1947 – Tanith Lee born, prolific British science fiction, horror, and fantasy author of over 90 novels and 300 short stories; first woman to win the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel for Death’s Master in 1979, book two of her Flat-Earth Cycle. Honored in 2009 with a World Horror Grand Master Award.

September 19, 1950 – Joan Lunden born, American television news correspondent and co-host of ABC’s Good Morning America (1980-1997). Host of Second Opinion since 2021.

September 19, 1965 – Sunita Williams born, U.S. astronaut and Naval officer; assigned to the International Space Station as a member of Expeditions 14 and 15, flight engineer on Expedition 32, and commander of Expedition 33.

September 19, 1966 – Soledad O’Brien born, American broadcast journalist and executive producer; anchor for the syndicated weekly program Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien; founder and chair of Starfish Media Group since 2013.

September 19, 1970 – The Mary Tyler Moore Show debuts on CBS; a rare American television show which had a female lead character over 30 who had never married. It ran from 1970 to 1977.

September 19, 1972 – N. K. Jemisin born as Nora Keita Jemisin, American science fiction/fantasy writer and counseling psychologist. Jemisin's novel The Fifth Season, book one in her Broken Earth trilogy, won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2016, making her the first African-American writer to win a Hugo Award in that category. All three Broken Earth books won Hugo Best Novel Awards, the first time that all novels in a trilogy won the award.

September 19, 1976 – Alison Sweeney born, American actress, director, and author. Her career began at age five. In 2004, she published All the Days of My Life (So Far), a memoir of her struggles maintaining the underweight figure required by Hollywood, and the endless tabloid discussions of her “weight problem.” She has also written novels: The Star Attraction, Scared Scriptless, and Opportunity Knocks. In 2014, she directed several episodes of General Hospital.

September 19, 2019 – In over 250 towns and cities in Spain, protesters took to the nighttime streets, declaring a ‘Feminist Emergency’ after a series of high-profile rape cases and a summer in which 19 women were murdered. Since the government began recording such murders in 2003, 1,017 women were killed by their current or former partners, as of September 2019. In the first nine months of 2019, 42 women were murdered in domestic violence attacks, and 32 children left motherless. “This has been a summer dominated by barbarity, murders, rapes, assault, paedophilia and gang attacks,” said the organisers at Feminist Emergency, a women’s advocacy group. “The gender-based violence of the summer has led to the worst figures in more than a decade. We can’t let another school or parliamentary term begin as if nothing has happened. To do so would be to tolerate the intolerable … This is an emergency.” Participants “turn the night purple” the color of the feminist movement, by carrying lights and wearing clothing of that color, raising the alarm against indifference and lack of attention from politicians and the media. By 8 pm, masses of people were demonstrating in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao, Tarragona, Salamanca, Seville, and Alicante.

September 19, 2020 – Months after the catastrophic Beirut Port explosion, life remained uncertain for thousands of women and girls. An estimated 84,000 women and girls of reproductive age have been displaced. UNFPA, the agency specializing in reproductive and maternal health worldwide, is working with 12 partners on the ground to distribute dignity kits, containing sanitary pads, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and towels. These items are helping women and girls maintain their personal hygiene. “Just like I would want my girls to be fed, I would also want them to have these basic hygienic needs,” said Hayat Merhi, a woman with three adolescent daughters whose family was affected by the blast. Job losses curtailed family spending, even as disease prevention became more urgent than ever, and the needs of women and girls are often the first to go unmet. “There was a time when my daughters were using a piece of cloth instead of pads," said Lina Mroueh, who also has three adolescent daughters. “Bringing light into their broken homes and telling women and girls that their dignity, safety and personal needs matter to the world in these difficult times is the least we can do,” described Rima Al Hussayni, director of Al Mithaq Association. Dignity kits were provided to women and girls with disabilities, who often face additional vulnerabilities and challenges accessing sexual and reproductive health services and commodities. The dignity kits also contain referral information to connect survivors with help if they have experienced violence. The people distributing the kits are also trained to provide this information. “It is very important to remember that dignity kits ... reach women and girls with key messages about sexual and reproductive health and rights, gender-based violence, the prevention of sexual exploitation, and abuse services and information,” said Felicia Jones, UNFPA’s humanitarian coordinator.

September 19, 2021 – Thousands of women with ovarian cancer could benefit from a revolutionary drug combination shown to shrink tumors in half of patients with an advanced form of the disease. The pair of drugs – which work together to block the signals cancer cells need to grow – could offer a new treatment option for women with low-grade serous ovarian cancer, a type of ovarian cancer that rarely responds to chemotherapy or hormone therapy, and tends to develop at a younger age. Results from early trials by the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust were presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress. Phase 2 testing is already underway. Dr. Susana Banerjee, from the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), who is a consultant medical oncologist and research lead at the Royal Marsden’s gynaecology unit, said: “If these findings are confirmed in larger trials, they’ll represent a significant advance in low-grade serous ovarian cancer treatment.”

Dr. Susana Banerjee

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September 20, 1058 – Agnes of Poitou, regent of the Holy Roman Empire (1056-1061) during the minority of her son, Henry IV. On this day, she met with Andrew I of Hungary to negotiate the border territory of Burgenland, which remained the western frontier of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary until the 16th century.

Agnes of Poitou — Codex Aureus — Henry III on left

September 20, 1822 – “Libby” Smith Miller born, American suffragist and advocate for ‘Rational Dress’ for women; designer of the “bloomer” costume made popular by Amelia Bloomer in The Lily.

September 20, 1831 – Kate Harrington born, teacher, author of children’s books and educational materials; pioneer in developing a sequential reading program, with emphasis on phonics, complete with a separate teacher's manual and spelling and reading books; noted for innovative use of music and reading materials geared to children’s interests.

September 20, 1846 – Agnes Tyrrell born, Danish composer and child prodigy who gave up her career as a pianist because of a heart condition. Tyrrell then wrote many works for the piano, several orchestral works, dozens of lieder and other types of songs, as well as choral works. She died at age 36 in 1883.

September 20, 1847 – Susanna Rubinstein born, Austrian psychologist; she earned a Ph.D. in 1874 in psychology and German literature. Her 1878 work "Psychologisch-Asthetische Essays" ("Psychological-Aesthetic Essays") is considered a major contribution to the study of human emotions. It was reprinted in 2012.

September 20, 1883 – Maria Baers born, Belgian Flemish trade unionist, feminist, and politician. In 1920, Baers founded the Nationaal Verbond der Christelijke Vrouwengilden (National Union of Christian Women's Guilds). In 1936, she was one of the first two women elected as senators in Belgium, and in 1945, she became the first woman Secretary of the State. She also served as Chair of the Parliamentary Commission on Health.

September 20, 1884 – The National Equal Rights Party is founded in San Francisco; Belva Lockwood and Marietta Snow are nominated as President and V.P. candidates.

September 20, 1886 – Mae Ella Nolan born, American Republican politician; fourth woman to serve in the U.S. Congress (1923-1925); first woman elected to Congress from California; first woman representative to chair a Congressional Committee (on Expenditures in the Post Office Department); and first widow elected to fill the seat left vacant by her husband's death. She initially supported her husband’s negative stance on women’s suffrage, but later supported women’s right to vote. However, she did not run for a second term, claiming “politics is man’s business.”

September 20, 1888 – Sue S. Dauser born, served as a Navy nurse from 1917 until her appointment as Superintendent of the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps during WWII; she retired in 1945.

September 20, 1890 – Linda Eenpalu born, Estonian politician and women’s rights activist; first Estonian woman member of the National Constituent Assembly (1937) and of the Second Chamber of the National Council (1938). A librarian at the Tartu Public Library Society (1913-1914), she co-founded the Estonian Female Student's Society (1911); central committee member of the Estonian Women's Club from 1928, Chairperson of the Central Society of the Estonian Rural Women in 1929–1940 and member of the National Economic Council in 1935–1938. In 1937, she was a member of the national housing department, and in 1938–1940 she was the only woman member of the Second Chamber of the National Council. Arrested in 1941, she was deported to Tomsk Oblast in Siberia, where she remained until 1956.

September 20, 1899 – Anna L. Strauss born, League of Women Voters national president (1944-1950); President Truman named her to the Commission on Internal Security and Individual Rights (1951). Strauss was the great-granddaughter of abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Lucretia Mott.

September 20, 1902 – Stevie Smith born, English poet, novelist, and short story writer. She was awarded the 1966 Cholmondeley Award for Poetry and the 1969 Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.

September 20, 1906 – Vera Faddeeva born, Soviet mathematician; she published some of the earliest work in the field of numerical linear algebra. Her 1950 work, Computational methods of linear algebra was widely acclaimed, and she won a USSR State Prize for it. Between 1962 and 1975, she wrote many research papers with her husband, Dmitry Konstantinovich Faddeev.

September 20, 1923 – Geraldine Clinton Little born in Northern Ireland, American author, playwright, and poet; her book-length poem Hakugai (Persecution) is based on the Japanese-American internment during WWII, but her best-known work is her historical play Heloise and Abelard.

September 20, 1929 – Anne Meara born, American actress, comedian, and writer; she and her husband, Jerry Stiller, performed as the comedy team Stiller and Meara; she wrote the play, After-Play, and won a Writers Guild Award for The Other Woman. Meara was nominated for 4 Emmys and a Tony Award.

September 20, 1934 – Sophia Loren born as Sofia Villani Scicolone; Italian actress and international film legend; first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in a non-English language film, Two Women (originally called La ciociara in Italy). In 1991, Loren received an Academy Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award for her contributions to world cinema and was declared "one of the world cinema's treasures." In September 1999, she filed a lawsuit against 79 adult websites for posting altered nude photos of her on the internet.

September 20, 1937 – Birgitta Dahl born, Swedish Social Democratic Party politician: Member of Parliament (1969- 2002); Speaker of the Parliament (1994- 2002). Since 2005, chair of the Swedish section of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

September 20, 1940 – Anna Pavord born, Welsh-English gardening expert and writer; correspondent for the Independent newspaper since 1986, associate editor of Gardens Illustrated magazine, contributor to the Observer newspaper (1970-1992), and to the magazines like Country Life and Elle Decoration. Author of The Curious Gardener; The Tulip; Bulb; and Landskipping.

September 20, 1942 – Rose Francine Rogombé born, Gabonese Democratic Party politician; acting President of Gabon (June to October 2009) after the death of President Omar Bongo; President of the Senate and Senator from Lambaréné (2009).

September 20, 1946 – Judith Baca born, Latina visual artist and muralist, community activist. Has taught art in the University of California system since 1984. Artistic director of the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC).

September 20, 1956 – Jennifer Tour Chayes born, American computer scientist and mathematician; current Dean of UC Berkeley’s College of Computing and Data Science; Managing Director of Microsoft Research New England (2008-2020); worked on phase transitions in discrete mathematics and computer science, structural and dynamical properties of self-engineered networks, and algorithmic game theory. She is also an expert in the modeling and analysis of dynamically growing graphs; she holds over 25 patents, and has published over 100 papers; honored in 2015 with the John von Neumann Lecture Prize by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

September 20, 1959 – Meral Okay born, Turkish film producer, screenwriter, and actress; produced the TV series Second Spring (1998-2001), and screenwriter for the historical soap opera, Muhteşem Yüzyil, based on the life of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.

September 20, 1973 – Billie Jean King defeats Bobby “No-Broad-Can-Beat-Me” Riggs in their famous media event, the ‘Battle of the Sexes’ tennis match at the Houston Astrodome in Texas.

September 20, 1995 – Laura Dekker born in New Zealand, Dutch sailor; at age 16, she was the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe single-handed. Her solo voyage began August 21, 2010, in a 12.4 metre (40 foot) two-masted ketch called Guppy. After 518 days at sea, she completed her circumnavigation on January 21, 2012.

September 20, 2011 – Repeal of the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" compromise takes effect, making it possible for LGBTQ members of the military to serve more openly.

President Obama signing repeal of ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’

September 20, 2019 – Greta Thunberg led a demonstration in New York City, calling for action on the global climate crisis, part of a Global Climate Strike in which between five and six million people participated, the third and largest climate action to come from Thunberg’s school strike for action, which she started in Sweden in 2018.

September 20, 2020 – Freedom House, a think tank that conducts an annual audit of global freedom, reported that “the fundamentals of democracy are under attack around the world. Targeted for attack are those who most recently won legal rights – women are a prime target. Politicians like Donald Trump of the U.S., Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Vladimir Putin of Russia, Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines. Viktor Orbán of Hungary, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, Andrzej Duda of Poland are moving against women’s equality and reproductive rights. The Patriarchy, the long-entrenched power and control of men over society, is a formidable foe. Laura Bierema of the University of Georgia calls it the “hidden curriculum,” which teaches girls and women “subordination to the dominant patriarchal system. Lessons learned include gender roles, a devaluing of women, silence and invisibility, submission to male power, and acceptance of role contradictions ... [They] are so ingrained in the culture that they are practically invisible.” The World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report for 2020 concludes that, “At the present rate of change, it will take nearly a century to achieve parity, a timeline we simply cannot accept in today’s globalized world, especially among younger generations who hold increasingly progressive views of gender equality.” Along with economic reversals, women are being urged to abandon feminism, and return to their status as the “second sex,” retreating to home and subservience to men. Sherlina Janmohamed, author of Generation M: Young Muslims Changing the World, writes, “We should be most concerned about the prevailing social and political mood. In some circles, the empowerment of women is seen as an existential threat to men. Populism has swept into power on the back of a largely male desire to return to how things used to be, born of an aggrieved sense of being ‘left behind.’” In the U.S., the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2018 added two male supremacy websites to its list of hate groups. Their ideology, according to the SPLC, presents all women as “genetically inferior, manipulative, and stupid” beings who exist primarily for their “reproductive and sexual functions.” Jamohamed says, “It’s why Mr. Trump’s brand of admissions of sexual assault are brushed off as ‘locker room’ talk. It’s why Mr. Duterte can joke about rape with little to no comeback.” When patriarchy and populism arise together, among the first casualties are women’s hegemony over their own bodies, and the fundamental right to personal safety. In the U.S., Trump decreed the Global Gag Rule, banning organizations that receive U.S. funding from using their own funds to advocate for, share information on, or offer abortion services. At the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the Trump administration argued for blocking access to sexual and reproductive health – particularly abortion – and for changing the definition of domestic violence to include only physical harm. Psychological abuse, coercive control and manipulation, though now accepted by most medical experts as key to abuse, were no longer to be recognized. Stanford political scientist Anna Grzymala-Busse says the solution is political, “Vote! Vote for politicians and parties who make credible promises, who do not simply want to shut down criticism or to view their opponent as their enemies ... [Politicians] who are committed to the democratic rules of the game.”

Laura Bierema — Sherlina Janmohamed — Anna Grzymala-Busse

September 20, 2021 – Amnesty International’s report, Justice on Trial: Failures in criminal investigations of ‘femicidio’ (femicides) preceded by disappearance in the State of Mexico, documents how investigations by the State of Mexico Attorney General’s Office into femicides preceded by disappearances are seriously flawed due to the inaction and negligence of the authorities leading to evidence being lost, all lines of inquiry not being investigated, and a gender perspective not being applied correctly. These shortcomings hamper the judicial process and increase the likelihood that cases will remain unpunished. These failings are consistent with those found in other investigations highlighted by civil society organizations and by rights holders, as well as with cases such as the femicides committed in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, more than 20 years ago. “State-level authorities must prevent, investigate and punish femicides with due diligence. As part of the Mexican state, they are obliged to comply with the international treaties to which Mexico is a state party, including the Belem do Pará Convention, the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women and the judgments issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in respect of Mexico, which establish a set of norms, standards and principles to guarantee women’s rights”, said Edith Olivares-Ferreto, Executive Director of Amnesty International Mexico. “Each femicide has an appalling impact on the victims’ families, who, in their search for access to the truth, justice and reparation for the harm done, also suffer re-victimization by the authorities. For this reason, Amnesty International continues to insist that the issue of violence against women must be a high priority on the agenda of the federal and local governments.” In 2020 alone, 3,723 killings of women were registered in Mexico, of which 940 were investigated as femicides in the country’s 32 states. Not one Mexican state was free of femicides.

Edith Olivares-Ferreto

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September 21, 1552 – Barbara Longhi born, Italian painter, admired as a portraitist during her lifetime, but many of her works are now lost, unattributed, or misattributed.

‘St. Catherine of Alexandria’ — presumed self-portrait by Barbara Longhi

September 21, 1809 – Sophia Peabody Hawthorne born, painter, illustrator, writer, and wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne; one of the Peabody Sisters; she and her sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, had a notable impact on early childhood education, the Transcendentalist movement, and the arts and letters of their day.

Sophia Peabody Hawthorne - Villa Menaggio, Lago di Como - Italy

September 21, 1819 – Louise Marie Thérèse d’Artois born, Duchess of Parma; after the assassination of her husband, she served as regent (1854-1859) of Parma during the minority of her son, Robert I.

September 21, 1832 – Maria Miller Stewart, a young free African American woman, addressed a crowd of men and women in Boston's Franklin Hall, the first woman in America to address mixed gender and race audiences on the topic of abolition. Maria Miller was born in 1803 in Hartford, Conn., to two African-born parents. Orphaned at the age of five, she was “bonded out” to work as a servant for a local minister. At sixteen, she began her education in “Sabbath Schools” and eventually moved to Boston. When she was twenty-three, she married James W. Stewart, a Boston shipping agent twenty-four years her senior. His prestigious career brought the family some wealth and earned the couple a place among Boston’s black middle class. After just three years of marriage, James Stewart died of heart disease. Though he had provided generously for his wife in his will, Maria Miller Stewart was denied her inheritance because of the dishonest practices of some white businessmen. Just eight months later, in 1830, her close family friend David Walker also died. Walker had been Stewart’s political role model. Though she was already politically conscious, these tragic events compelled Stewart to speak out against racial and gender discrimination. In 1831, Stewart responded to William Lloyd Garrison’s call for women to support the abolitionist cause. She brought him Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, a collection of political tracts she had written. Garrison responded positively and even published her work in his abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. Her first speech in September of 1832 at Boston’s Franklin Hall came at a time when “Negro speakers” were virtually unknown and it was considered unseemly for women to address audiences that included men. Evangelical in style, and soon known as a bold and militant orator, Stewart called on all black Americans to develop racial pride, unity, and self-improvement through the expansion of educational and occupational rights. She went on to give three other addresses before withdrawing from public speaking, though not from advocacy and social justice activism. In 1833, she moved to New York City where she joined the Female Literacy Society and later taught black children, at a fraction of the salary paid white teachers. “Let our money be appropriated for schools and seminaries of learning for our children,” she wrote, for “our young men and maidens are fainting and drooping by the way-side for the want of knowledge.” William Lloyd Garrison remained one of Stewart’s supporters, and he showcased transcripts of her speeches in The Liberator. Several decades later, he helped Stewart win the pension to which she was entitled as the widow of a soldier from the War of 1812. With this money, she was able to publish her collected speeches and writings in Meditations from the Pen of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart.

September 21, 1884 – Ethel Percy Andrus born, educator, first woman principal at a California high school; founder of the National Retired Teachers Association (NRTA) and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).

September 21, 1898 – Frances Albrier born, influenced Marcus Garvey to expand his vision to include black women; organized Pullman Company waiters; started the “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaign; and was one of first black women welders.

September 21, 1898 – Empress Dowager Cixi, virulently opposed to foreigners, seized power, ended the Hundred Days’ Reform in China, and had several advocates for reform executed.

September 21, 1907 – Helen Foster Snow born. American journalist who moved to China in 1931 to work in the American Consulate. After s he married American journalist Edgar Snow, a correspondent for the Saturday Evening Post, in 1932, she became a correspondent under the name Nym Wales for several publications . In 1937, she and her husband visited the communist wartime capital of Yan’an, where she interviewed Mao Zedong. By the time she returned to the U.S. in 1940, her health had been compromised by poor diet. Her husband went back and forth between the U.S. and China, and they eventually divorced. She wrote books about China, but had difficulty publishing them during the McCarthy era, because she was labeled a Communist sympathizer. In 1978, she returned to China for six weeks with a camera crew. There she was interviewed and asked to recount her adventures in the 1930s. She published her autobiography in 1984. Foster Snow died at age 89 in 1997.

September 21, 1916 – Françoise Giroud born to immigrant Turkish Sephardic Jews; French journalist, screenwriter, writer, and politician; French Minister of Culture (1976-1977); editor of Elle magazine (1946-1953); co-founder in 1953 of the French newsmagazine, L’Express, which she edited until 1971, and then became its director until 1974.

September 21, 1917 – Phyllis Nicolson born, British mathematician; worked on the Crank-Nicolson Method with John Crank, for numerically solving the heat equation and similar partial differential equations.

September 21, 1923 – Kim Williams born, naturalist, reporter for NPR on organic gardening and All Things Considered (1976-1986); author of Book of Uncommon Sense.

September 21, 1932 – Shirley Conran born, British novelist and journalist; author of Lace, on the New York Times Bestseller list for 13 weeks; also founded Maths Action, an educational non-profit.

September 21, 1932 – Marjorie Fletcher born, Director of the British Women’s Royal Navy Service (WRNS – 1986-1988); joined the WRNS in 1953, and served two tours on Malta; director of the naval staff college in 1979; first woman to become director of the naval staff duties division in the Ministry of Defense.

September 21, 1936 – Diane Rehm born, host of the long-running National Public Radio talk show, The Diane Rehm Show (1984-2016); she is an advocate for the right to die with dignity.

September 21, 1944 – Fannie Flagg born, American comedian, actress, and author; noted for her 1987 best-selling novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, and her screenplay adaptation for the 1991 movie, which was nominated for an Academy Award.

September 21, 1945 – Kay Ryan born, American poet and educator; U.S. Poet Laureate (2008-2010), 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for The Best of It: New and Selected Poems.

September 21, 1947 – Marsha Norman born, American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist; 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for ‘night, Mother.

September 21, 1956 – Marta Kauffman born, American writer and TV producer; co-creator and co-executive producer with David Crane of the comedy series Friends (1994-2004), and co-creator with Howard J. Morris of Grace and Frankie (2015-2022).

September 21, 1960 – Masoumeh Ebtekar born, Iranian politician and professor of Immunology; first woman Vice President of Iran (1997-2005); currently Vice President and Head of Environmental Protection Organization, since 2013.

September 21, 1965 – Johanna Vuoksenmaa born, Finnish director and screenwriter for television and film; noted for the films, Nousukausi (Upswing), and 21 Tapaa Pilata Avioliitto (21 ways to Ruin a Marriage).

September 21, 1970 – Samantha Power born in Ireland, American academic, war correspondent, author, diplomat, and activist for atrocity prevention. During the Obama Administration, she was a Special Assistant to the President (2008) and Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights on the National Security Council (2009-2013); inaugural Chair of the Atrocities Prevention Board (2012), where she focused on UN reform, women’s and LGBTQ rights, religious freedom and religious minorities, refugees, human trafficking, human rights, and democracy. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (2013-2017).

September 21, 1973 – Vanessa Grigoriadis born, American journalist of Greek descent; contributor to The New York Times Magazine and Vanity Fair; author of Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus.

September 21, 1981 – U.S. Senate confirms Sandra Day O’Connor as first woman Supreme Court justice, in a 99-0 vote.

September 21, 1986 – Lindsey Stirling born, American violinist, composer, and performance artist; presents choreographed violin performances on her YouTube channel since 2007; in 2013, she teamed with the non-profit Atlanta Music Project to help under-served children in Atlanta to learn and perform music in choirs and orchestras.

September 21, 1996 – The all-male Virginia Military Institute (VMI) decides to allow women cadets.

September 21, 1996 – U.S. Congress passes the “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA), prohibiting federal recognition of same-sex marriage, allowing states to use their own definition, but not requiring them to recognize same-sex marriages granted under laws of other states. DOMA’s section three was declared unconstitutional in 2013, and it was repealed in 2022.

September 21, 2020 – In the UK, Honour, a two-part ITV television drama portraying the real-life investigation into the murder of a 20-year-old woman by her family is set to air, but the sister of the victim says little has changed since Banaz Mahmod was killed in 2006. Her sister, Payzee Mahmod, a British Kurd says, “Lessons have not been learned. Banaz is not the first ‘honour’ killing and she won’t be the last.” Payzee and her sister were pushed into arranged marriages when she was 16, and Banaz was 17. Before Banaz disappeared from her South London home, she had gone to the police begging for help five times. Payzee now works as a campaigner against child marriage, while their sister Bekhal remains in hiding after giving evidence against their father. “My biggest hope is that this film will start the right conversation. You think about different groups of people watching it. You hope they don’t think: ‘Oh she went to police five times, I’m not going.’ You hope the right people will think: ‘If ever I’m presented with a case like that, I’ll act quickly.’ You hope young people who have a belief in the ‘honour’ code might think about how toxic those beliefs can be.” It was a woman detective, DCI Caroline Goode, who was appalled that her colleagues had missed multiple chances to save Banaz’s life, and worked to bring the five men who would be convicted of the killing to justice. Banaz, 20, was raped and murdered after leaving an allegedly abusive marriage and falling in love with another man. In the eyes of her family, her actions brought shame on them, so her father and uncle and other relatives plotted to murder her to restore their “honour.” Banaz herself produced the key piece of evidence in the case: “What she handed to the police when she was alive really became its foundation. She gave a list of the names of the five men she said were following her, abusing her, stalking her.” But she was refused protection. One officer dismissed her as manipulative and melodramatic. It wasn’t until Banaz’s boyfriend, Rahmat Sulemani, reported her missing that police began to investigate. Sulemani took his own life in 2016. DCI Goode, without evidence or a body, used techniques more commonly found in organised crime cases, such as recording calls made by the suspects, two of whom had fled to Iraq. Goode eventually tracked down the body of the 20-year-old, which had been put in a suitcase and buried in the garden of a derelict house in Birmingham. Payzee says Goode’s determination was inspirational. “She said we won’t stop until we do what is right for Banaz. There were a lot of setbacks in the case. But she continued working and wading through.”

Banaz Mahmod

September 21, 2021 – 52 companies signed and released a statement voicing opposition to Texas' new law banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The employers said that "restricting access to comprehensive reproductive care, including abortion, threatens the health, independence, and economic stability of our workers and customers." The statement came after many companies debated for weeks how to respond to the restrictions passed by the Republican-led legislature and signed by Republican Governor Greg Abbott. Many companies, including Starbucks and Microsoft, declined to sign the letter. The law bans abortion after a so-called “fetal heartbeat” can be detected, making the procedure illegal before most women know they're pregnant.

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September 22, 1515 – Anne of Cleves born, briefly fourth wife of Henry VIII, their marriage is annulled after six months, but she manages to keep her head on her shoulders, receives a generous settlement and remains in England; she and Catherine Parr are Henry VIII’s only wives who outlive him.

Anne of Cleves — by H. Holbein — and by Barthel Bruyn the Elder

September 22, 1601 – Anne of Austria born, Spanish princess and Austrian archduchess of the House of Habsburg; became queen of France at age 14 when she was married by proxy to King Louis XIII. Louis ignored his bride, and his mother, Marie de’ Medici, continued to conduct herself as queen of France, holding on to her considerable political power. Anne buffered herself among her Spanish ladies-in-waiting, and failed to improve her French. In 1617, Louis rebelled against his mother’s influence with the help of Charles d'Albert, Duke of Luynes, and had his mother’s favorite, the 1st Marquis d’Ancre, assassinated. Anne’s Spanish ladies-in-waiting were sent back to Spain, and Louis finally began to pay attention to her. But after a series of stillbirths, he became aloof again. When the Duke of Luynes died, he turned to Cardinal Richelieu as his chief advisor. Richelieu set Louis against the Habsburgs, who surrounded France on two fronts. The queen was drawn into political opposition to Richelieu. Her household was purged, her trusted ladies-in-waiting and officials replaced by those loyal to Richelieu. In 1635, France declared war in Spain, cutting the queen off from her family, except for secret and dangerous correspondence through the Spanish embassies in Paris and Brussels. Finally, in 1638, at age 37, Anne gave birth to a son, Louis XIV, and 15 months later, gave birth to a second son, Philippe 1st, Duke of Orleans. Both of her sons were placed under the supervision of the royal governess Françoise de Lansac, who was loyal to the cardinal. When Louis died in 1643, Anne was named as regent, despite the king’s attempts to prevent it. She persuaded the Parlement de Paris revoke his will, which would have limited her powers. Their 4-year-old son was crowned King Louis XIV of France, and she served as regent, but had to share power with Cardinal Mazarin, until Louis reached his majority in 1651. She still had influence with her son after he became king. The French war with Spain ended in 1659 with the Treaty of the Pyrenees. Louis married Anne’s niece Maria Theresa of Spain in 1660. Anne retired to the convent of Val-de-Grâce, where she died of breast cancer at age 64 in 1666.

September 22, 1656 – In Patuxent, Maryland, Judith Catchpole, an indentured maidservant, was accused of murdering her child as well as acts of witchcraft. The man making the accusations was also an indentured servant, a fellow passenger on the ship which had brought them to the American colonies. He also claimed she had cut the throat of another woman passenger, and stabbed a seaman in the back, all while the rest of the passengers were asleep. Her accuser died after telling the other passengers his story. For a woman to murder her child was considered such a crime against womanhood that the General Provincial Court impaneled an all-female jury, so that Catchpole would be judged by a jury of her peers. The evidence presented against her did not account for how she was able to hide a pregnancy, or give birth to a child, aboard a small crowded ship with no one but her accuser being the wiser, and the accusation that after slitting the woman's throat, she sewed it back up before the woman awoke, and that she had rubbed grease on the back of the fatally wounded seaman and he came back to life, seemed even more unlikely. Catchpole stated with conviction she had never been pregnant, and the married women on the jury were called upon to examine her. They concluded that she had not given birth recently, if ever, so therefore she could not have committed infanticide. The rest of her testimony was also believed, and she was acquitted.

September 22, 1692 – Martha Corey and 7 other convicted "witches" hanged in Salem, Massachusetts. Eleven people – mostly women – had already been hanged as witches, after being accused by young girls.

September 22, 1868 – Louise C. McKinney born, one of Canada’s ‘Famous Five’ in the Persons Case; first woman sworn into the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, first woman elected to a Canadian legislature and in the entire British Empire; fought for women’s property rights, education, temperance, and government ownership of grain elevators and flour mills; the ‘Five’ and the Persons Case have been recognized as being of ‘National Historic Significance’ by the Canadian Government; in 2009, the Canadian Legislature voted to name all of the ‘Famous Five’ as Canada’s first “honorary senators.”

Louise McKinney (right, hand on shoulder) — ‘Famous Five’ statue by Helen Grange Young, by Manitoba legislature

September 22, 1880 – Christabel Pankhurst born, English suffragette, co-founder with her mother Emmeline Pankhurst of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and director of their militant action from exile in France (1912-1913), but publicly supported Britain during WWI. Though she earned a law degree in 1906 from the University of Manchester, and received honours on her LL.B. exam, she was not allowed to practice law because of her gender.

September 22, 1891 – Alma Thomas born, African-American Expressionist painter and art educator; part of the Washington Color School, a visual arts movement started in Washington DC; in 1924, she was the first graduate from Howard University’s Fine Arts Department; taught at Shaw Junior High School (1924-1960), where she started a community arts program. In 1934, she earned a Master’s in Art Education from Columbia University.

September 22, 1895 – Babette Deutsch born, American poet, critic, translator, and novelist. She taught at the New School for Social Research and at Columbia University, where one of her students was Lawrence Ferlinghetti. She translated poems by Boris Pasternak and Rainer Maria Rilke, and with her husband, Avraham Yarmolinsky, translated Eugene Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. Her first poetry collection, Banners, published in 1919, was followed by nine additional collections. She published four novels, which are out-of-print, four books about poetry, and edited Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1967).

September 22, 1899 – Elsie Allen born, Native American Pomo basket weaver from the Northern California Cloverdale Rancheria of Pomo Indians of California. The women in her family were accomplished basketweavers, and her mother Annie founded the Pomo Indian Women’s Club to promote traditional Pomo basketry, but she also convinced Elsie to break with tradition and keep her baskets to show future basketmakers instead of burning or burying them. As interest within the tribe in basketry waned, she began teaching anyone who was interested in learning her technique, and used non-traditional materials, causing controversy within the tribe. One of her last students was her niece, Susan Billy. Allan also worked with linguist Abraham M. Halpern to document the Southern Pomo language.

Elsie Allen teaching how to weave a Pomo basket

September 22, 1905 – Ellen Church born, first woman hired as an airline stewardess; a registered pilot and a registered nurse, she was turned down by Boeing Air Transport as a pilot, but was hired in 1930 as head stewardess, recruiting seven others for a three-month trial period. Boeing requirements: must be RNs, under age 25, less than 5’4” tall, and under 115 pounds – also expected to help haul luggage, and with pushing the aircraft into the hangar. Pay, for women of the time, was good: $125 a month.

September 22, 1906 – Phyllis Hartnoll born, British poet, book editor, and theatre historian. She won the Newdigate Prize for Poetry in 1929, and published her collection, The maid’s song and other poems, in 1938. Worked for the MacMillan publishing house as a book editor (1929-1967). Hartnoll was a founding member of the Society for Theatrical Research in 1948, and edited The Oxford Companion to the Theatre, first published in 1951.

September 22, 1924 – Rosamunde Pilcher born, British author of historical romance novels, also used pen name Jane Fraser. During WWII, she served with the Women’s Royal Naval Service (1943-1946). Noted for The Shell Seekers, Coming Home, and Winter Solstice.

September 22, 1931 – Fay Weldon born, English author, essayist, feminist, and playwright; best known for her novel The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, and for writing the first episode of Upstairs, Downstairs. While studying psychology and economics at the University of St. Andrews in the early 1950s, she recalls taking classes with moral philosopher Malcolm Knox, who “spoke exclusively to the male students, maintaining that women were incapable of moral judgment or objectivity.”

September 22, 1939 – Deborah Lavin born, South African historian and academic, worked in the UK for most of her career. She was Principal of Trevelyan College at Durham University (1979-1995), and co-director of Durham’s Research Institute for the Study of Change (1980-1995); President of the Durham University Howland Trust (1995-1997); co-author of South African Memories: Scraps of History.

September 22, 1939 – Junko Tabei born, Japanese mountaineer; first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, and first woman to ascend all Seven Summits by climbing the highest peak on every continent.

September 22, 1940 – Anna Karina born as Hanne Bayer in Denmark, Danish-French film actress, director, and writer. She was in several films by French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard in the 1960s; in 1972, she set up her own production company to produce her directorial debut, Vivre ensemble, screened in the Critics’ Week lineup at the 26th Cannes Film Festival. She also directed the French-Canadian film Victoria. Karina’s novels in French include Vivre ensemble and Golden City.

September 22, 1947 – “Jane Roe” Norma McCorvey born, plaintiff in the landmark Roe v. Wade case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the banning of abortion by individual states was unconstitutional. In her 1994 autobiography, I Am Roe, she wrote about her sexual orientation and relationship with her long-time partner, Connie Gonzales. After becoming an Evangelical Christian, she expressed regrets for her part in Roe v. Wade, and became an anti-abortion activist. But shortly before her death, she said her anti-abortion activism was all an act: “I took their money and they'd put me out in front of the cameras and tell me what to say.” She added, "If a young woman wants to have an abortion, that's no skin off my ass. That’s why they call it choice."

‘Jane Roe’ with lawyer Gloria Allred on Supreme Court steps

September 22, 1949 – Businessman Hilary A. Bufton Junior founds the Business Women’s Association with businesswomen Shirley Cupp, Irma Beisel, and Frances Stuckey (who were not named in the newspaper story — oh, the irony). Bufton wrote: “It was my feeling all women were seeking and deserved equal business opportunities ... They had gained tremendous business knowledge during World War II, through necessity, and I felt a new organization for all businesswomen was needed.”

September 22, 1953 – Ségolène Royal born, French Socialist politician; French Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy (2014-2017); Member of the National Assembly for Deux-Sévres (2002-2007); first woman in France nominated by a major party as a presidential candidate in 2007.

September 22, 1958 – Beth Catlin born, autistic savant; her hobby is making and sending birthday cards to people she meets. She is able to remember the names, birthdates, and addresses of over 3,834 people; no card has ever been returned for a mistaken address.

September 22, 1961 – Diane Lemieux born, French Canadian politician, lawyer, and feminist; dubbed “the lioness of Bourget” — advocate for women’s rights and sexual assault victims. Member of the Assemblée nationale du Québec (Quebec National Assembly, 1998-2007); president of the Conseil du statut de la femme (Quebec Council for the Status of Women/CSF, 1996-1998); recipient of Québec’s 1991 Prix de la Justice award.

September 22, 1961 – Bonnie Hunt born, American comedian, actress, director, producer, writer, and television host. She created, produced, wrote, and starred in The Building (1993), Bonnie (1995-1996), and Life with Bonnie (2002-2004), and hosted The Bonnie Hunt Show (2008-2010).

September 22, 1966 – Ruth Jones born, Welsh actress, writer, and producer. Co-writer and co-star of the BBC sitcom Gavin & Stacy (2007-2010, 2019). She was awarded the BAFTA Cymru Sian Phillips Special Recognition Award in 2009.

September 22, 1969 – Sue Perkins born, English comedian, writer, radio broadcaster, actress, and television presenter. Known for her partnership with Mel Giedroyc as the comedic duo Mel and Sue, hosts of The Great British Bake Off, and lunchtime programmes on British public television’s Channel 4. She was a writer for the long-running BBC series Absolutely Fabulous. Beginning in 2007, Perkins appeared on a series on Supersizers programmes, in which she and food critic Giles Coren wore historically correct clothing and ate typical meals served during different periods of history, beginning with Edwardian Supersize Me, and ranging from surviving on WWII rations to splendid Elizabethan feasts. In 2013, she wrote and starred in a six-part comedy series, Heading Out, about a veterinarian who has never told her aging parents she is gay.

September 22, 1970 – Gladys Berejiklian born to Armenian immigrants, Australian politician, Premier of New South Wales and New South Wales Liberal Party Leader since 2017; Liberal Party Deputy Leader (2014-2017); Member of the New South Wales Parliament for Willoughby (2003-2017).

September 22, 1983 – U.S. Congress passes joint resolution acknowledging American Business Women’s Day in honor the founding of the Business Women’s Association (now the American Business Women’s Association) on September 22, 1949.

September 22, 2019 – President Gianni Infantino of FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football) said women will finally be allowed into Tehran’s Azadi (“Freedom”) stadium to watch the World Cup qualifier match on October 10, which was FIFA’s deadline by which “women have to be allowed into football stadiums in Iran for all football matches.” However, Iranian authorities capped the number of women at 4,600 out of a stadium capacity of 100,000 seats. The effective 5% quota on seats for women contravenes FIFA’s constitution, statutes, and its human rights policy. Iran is the only country in the world to ban women from attending sports events held in stadiums. Iranian women and girls have defied the ban for years by disguising themselves as men to attend games, but those who are caught have been detained, arrested, beaten, jailed, and abused. Human Rights Watch declared that Iran’s plan to cap the number of women is discriminatory, deceptive, and dangerous. There are also no women’s restrooms at the Azadi stadium, and the Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFIRI) has rejected adding them, citing “budgetary issues.” Maryam Shojaei, the sister of the Iranian football team’s captain, said, “FIFA should earmark funds to build women’s restrooms to ensure the inclusion of everyone. The leagues are more frequent and important than World Cup matches, and FIFA must give them a deadline for club league matches so that families can go together to watch the games.”

The Azadi Stadium in Tehran — Maryam Shojaei

September 22, 

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