Since I had only driven by the banners on West Hollywood lamp posts two times (once in each direction) yesterday before posting on how my city is honoring Left-Wing Women’s Activist History Month, I decided to take a break from reading about the Iliad to do a very un-LA thing and take a leisurely stroll down Santa Monica Boulevard to review the various banners.
They had Zelda Gilroy, a former California state Senator, but not Dianne Feinstein, California’s senior United States Senator and a woman of some accomplishment, having held her city together when its Mayor and a City Supervisor were shot down in 1978. The Women’s Advisory Board to the City of West Hollywood couldn’t find anyone who had achieved anything before the late Nineteenth Century. No Abigail Adams, no Dolley Madison. No George Eliot or Jane Austen.
Most of them featured on the banners were activists and none of them activists for liberty, most activists for “rights.” Let’s take a gander at some of the women honored.
Basically, the City of West Hollywood has used our tax dollars to promote the political agenda of the far left. This would be a fine exercise of freedom if the City were not a public entity.
This does provide a window into the mindset. To the folks our City Council has tapped for its Women’s Advisory Group, the women who make history are not so much those who have accomplished great deeds, but have militated for “rights”.
This is not to belittle some of these ladies’ accomplishments for some were indeed pioneers worthy of recognition. This is merely to point out a skewed view of the world. Some may have quibbled about my inclusion of Phyllis Schlafly in my prior post, but the point is that she has actually accomplished something in much of the same manner as the women this city honors.
And we learn that they’re not honoring these activists’ gender as much as their ideology, appropriate perhaps for a union hall or party headquarters, but not on a public street where if they honor women of accomplishment from one side of the political aisle, they need also consider the other.
Coulda saved you a walk:
http://www.weho.org/index.aspx?recordid=48&page=23
Couldn’t find anything about how much it cost, but I really didn’t look very hard.
Question: How many of these women are/were anywhere near attractive?
Well it’s great to know with the above comment that gay conservatives are as sexist as straight conservatives.
Well it’s nice to know that they will celebrate the life of a eugenicist that was for killing ‘black babies’.
Maybe that’s why Condi Rice isn’t on the list. In Margaret Sanger and Levi’s world she wouldn’t exist.
While there are cases where even the law recognizes an abortion as justifiable if recommended by a physician, I assert that the hundreds of thousands of abortions performed in America each year are a disgrace to civilization.
– Margaret Sanger, Woman and the New Race, 1920
http://www.bartleby.com/1013/10.html
TGC, I saw the list as well, but note that it doesn’t include Ms. Sarandon, so thought maybe they left out Mrs. Thatcher or Secretary Rice.
Gee, a Radical-Left unionist agenda at-work?
….Hello, you live in West Hollywood.
Other than for the few LCR/GOProud types it would be to the left of Berkeley.
I wonder why Janet Reno isn’t up there?
Some of Margaret Sanger’s other greatest hits
My favourites:
“Our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying … demonstrates our foolhardy and extravagant sentimentalism … [Philanthropists] encourage the healthier and more normal sections of the world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity of others; which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree, a dead weight of human waste. Instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant … We are paying for, and even submitting to, the dictates of an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.”
Margaret Sanger. The Pivot of Civilization, 1922. Chapter on “The Cruelty of Charity,” pages 116, 122, and 189. Swarthmore College Library edition.
And:
“People like you need people like me to drag you kicking and screaming into the future. The entire scope of human history has been a march of liberalism, and this jingoistic, laissez-faire, God-fearing path you fools are prescribing is only knocking us off the right track.”
Oh wait, that was Levi. Sorry, they sound alike.
Livewire – please watch the first few minutes of “Idiocracy”.
While Sanger’s language is a bit, well, harsh… it seems somewhat accurate.
There’s no place for coercion here (forced abortions, euthanasia, and all the rest) but it seems common sense to me to craft public policy such that people who are incapable of rearing children are less prone to have them. I may an SOB but when I see some welfare type at the store, a few kids in tow and one in the oven, all I can think is how in the hell did I wind up with an open-ended obligation to support them.
You do realize that Condoleezza Rice was the SECOND female Secretary of State. Are you then arguing that Madeleine Albright should be part of these banners as the first female Secretary of State? If they had a similar display of banners during February for Black History Month, then I think it would be acceptable for you to raise a fuss there.
The first female governor who was a Republican was Kay Orr of Nebraska. She was the eighth female governor, her predecessors all being Democrats. Sarah Palin would be about the 28th or so female governor or the ninth Republican female governor. Connecticut and Arizona have both elected more than one female governor.
Margaret Thacher is British, not American.
Angela Merkel is German, not American.
Zelda Gilroy was a character on Dobie Gillis so I don’t know what that’s even about.
Abigail Adams and Dolly Madison, while excellent examples of commendable first ladies, have little to do with women’s issues, neither even being the first first lady. Lucy Webb would be a far better example here.
George Eliot and Jane Austen are foreign-born authors, more known for their insightful commentary on societal conventions than advocacy for women’s issues.
And I’m not sure who you’re referring to opposing the Equal Rights Amendment, but wouldn’t it seem a bit backward to celebrate someone for denying the advancement of women’s issues during Women’s History Month?
Biased much?
P.S If by “Zelda Gilroy” you mean the actress who played her, Shiela Kuehl, she was the first openly gay delegate to the California state legislature, a founding member of the California Legislative LGBT caucus and the first woman speaker of the California State Assembly.
What about Anne Bradstreet?
Phyllis Wheatley?
Mary Baker Eddy?
Kathryn Kuhlman?
Aimee Semple McPherson?
Using Countervail’s logic…
What was Hillary CLinton up there?
Anne Bradstreet, the Anne Bradstreet Puritan poet of the mid-17th century?
Phyllis Wheatley, the African-American poet of the mid-18th century?
Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Christian Scientist movement?
Kathryn Kuhlman, the faith healer?
Aimee Semple McPherson, the Canadian televangelist?
Early poets and charlatan religious figures? The poets I guess I could understand being the first of their form in the new world, but they were pre-American and not noted for the innovation of their work. What do any of these figures so associated with religion or religious conventions have to do with the advancement of women?
And Hillary Rodham Clinton was the first student commencement speaker at Wellesley, on the editorial board while receiving her JD at Yale, an attorney and influential business person in her early career, First Lady of Arkansas, First Lady of the United States, Senator, ran for President and now serves as Secretary of State. She’s been a long-time advocate for children and family issues. One of the most deserving of recognition of the advancement and achievement of women not just as a wife of someone important and influential, but as someone additionally important and influential herself. Wife, mother, attorney, businessperson, First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State. It’s a resume that few, if any have similarly achieved, not a life of firsts by any means, but a breadth hard to imagine, let alone match.
Given the liberal’s misogynistic attacks on Hillary and Palin, I’ll take that as the most dumbass joke ever.
Countervail,
Using those standards, surely Laura Bush (wife of Governour of Texas, educator, First Lady) should be there. Or even *shudder* that one woman from IL who ran for President back in 2000. Or Geraldine Ferrao.
And Sarah Palin (Governour of AK, mother, wife, second female VP candidate) Both her and the senator I can’t remember don’t have “famous for being someone else’s wife” in their list of bonifieds. Not to mention Maddie Albright (Miss “North Korea has so many happy people”) and Condi Rice.
And let’s not forget Sandy O’Connor and Liz Dole (wife of a senator, Senator, Cabinet member).
Dan’s point stands, there are a lot of famous and historic women from all sides of the spectrum. But ‘women’s history month’ has Susan Sarandon (who lists starring with Madonna in her list of creditntials) and airbrushing women on the right from history.
Ahah! [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Moseley_Braun]Carol Moseley Braun[/url] was her name.
Ayn Rand !
Laura Bush – while her work for women’s health issues while First Lady are commendable, there are far more notable first ladies than Laura Bush. While a successful wife and mother, her career was limited to a teacher and a librarian. Very noble and a fine example of a conservative woman but not really a good example of the progress of American women.
Carol Mosely Braun would be a possible example of a notable woman, a lawyer, the first African-American female senator (and the only?), the first woman to beat an incumbent senator, the first female senator from Illinois, ambassador to New Zealand, and a presidential candidate, she broke a lot of ground.
Geraldine Ferraro also broke a lot of new ground, a teacher, a lawyer, a representative for New York, the first Italian-American and female candidate for Vice President who always focused on issues for the advancement of women would be a good example for Women’s History month.
Sarah Palin, Miss Alaska, sportscaster, city councilwoman and half-term governor of a state with less population than Fort Worth, TX is an excellent example of a conservative woman, but not one of the progress of women. She broke no new ground and supports issues regressing the progress and equality of women in the country, the worst offense being nominated for a position she was sorely unqualified and unprepared for simply because of her gender and not her qualifications.
Sandra Day O’Connor is a good example of women’s progress. As the first supreme court justice she broke new ground. Wife, mother, Stanford law, lawyer, state senator/jurist, supreme court jurist, and now college chancellor she exemplifies the qualities deserving mention in women’s history month. I don’t agree with much of her positions and her decisions but can acknowledge she has set a high bar for other women to live up to.
Liddy Dole, Duke, Oxford, Harvard Law, first female Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Labor (first woman to hold two such positions), Head of American Red Cross, North Carolina’s first female Senator. She is an interesting example of the progress of women. Not that I can agree with her on much of anything. I do find it disappointing that as such a leader she doesn’t have a more pronounced track record of positive endorsements of women’s issues. Her last campaign took a very ugly turn as well against another woman. It’s difficult what to think about her. She’s a very personally ambitious person. Most of her accomplishments came as appointments by political friends. Her election as senator was to a state she hadn’t lived in for 30 years succeeding a slightly more conservative Senator Helms. I guess the progress she represents is something I don’t see as a positive representation for women per se but a fulfillment of personal ambition.
Coutnervail,
I honestly feel you’re letting your own biaes blind you. I mean you took my list, which I made an effort to include as bipartisan as possible, and agreed that the liberal women have an arguement when the conservative women didn’t. I even inferred that your biaes against what she did with her accomplishments hurts your evaluation of Sandy O’Connor’s accomplishments. I do feel that Liz Dole is very much the equal of Hillary and in most aspects her better.
In the end, I don’t worry much about ‘X history month’ except for wanting the historical impact to be more relevant than the color/gender. I mean we don’t honor Otis for his elevators, or Moulton for his lie detector (or his polyamoury or his D/s lifestyle) so why do we honour Susan Sarandon for her movie making? Or Bessie Coleman for being a pilot? I mean it’s not like (outside of Ohio and NC) the Wright Brothers have a holiday or anything?