“You don’t know you’re making
history when it’s happening. I
just wanted to do my job.”
– Charity Adams Earley,
Highest-Ranking Black American
Woman Officer of WWII – she had
to fight segregation and racism
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WOW2 is a four-times-a-month sister blog to This Week in the War on Women. PART ONE of this edition covers stories from December 1 through December 6.
PART TWO of this edition covers stories from December 7 and December 8.
The next installment of WOW2 will be on Saturday, December 10, 2022.
_________________________
“I fight every day so that this
country changes and confronts,
as painful as it may be, the truth,
the tragedy that it experienced.”
– Sola Sierra, Chilean Human
Rights Activist, who searched
for the thousands “disappeared”
by Pinochet’s regime
_________________________
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 moments in women’s history. It also serves as a reference archive of 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 next, 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.
Trailblazing Women and Events in Our History
Note: All images and audios are below the person or event to which they refer.
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- December 1, 1083 – Anna Komnene born, Byzantine princess, scholar, physician, hospital administrator, and historian; author of the Alexiad, an account of her father’s reign which is now the main source of Byzantine political history for the period; she administered a large hospital and orphanage in Constantinople, and taught medicine there; considered an expert on the treatment of gout; after she was involved in a plot to overthrow her brother when he took the throne after her father’s death, she forfeited her estates, spending her late years in the convent of Kecharitomene, studying philosophy and history.
- December 1, 1443 – Madeleine of France born, became Princess of Viana by marriage to Prince Gaston of Viana, and they had two children, but Gaston died in 1470, two years before the death of his father in 1472. After the death of her father-in-law, Madeleine was regent for her son Francis Phoebus until his death in 1483, and then served as regent for her daughter, Catherine, until 1494. She had to battle with her brother-in-law John of Foix, who tried to claim the throne as a male heir. In 1494, Madeleine was taken hostage by Ferdinand II of Aragon during his conflict with the French over control of Italy. When she died at age 51 in 1495 while still imprisoned, the conflict intensified.
- December 1, 1722 – Anna Louisa Karsch born, German poet from the Silesia region; first German woman to able to earn a living from her literary works. She was taught some Latin, and to read and write in German by a great-uncle, but after her father died, her mother remarried, and her stepfather became abusive about her “reading mania.” In secret, she continued to read books lent to her by a friend. She married at age 16 and bore two children, but divorced in 1745. Penniless, she remarried, but her second husband turned out to be an alcoholic. After a poem she wrote was read at a funeral, she began to compose poems for weddings and other local events, and her work started appearing in Silesian newspapers, where they developed a following. The payments she received for them helped her support her children. She arranged for her abusive husband to be pressed into the Prussian Army during the Prussian campaign against Austria, and some poems she wrote about Frederick the Great, the Prussian King, attracted even more notice. Members of the aristocratic salons became her patrons, and introduced her to literary notables. She was later given a pension and a house by Frederick’s successor, Friedrich Wilhelm II, and lived there composing poetry until her death at age 69 in 1791.
- December 1, 1761 – Marie Tussaud born, French sculptor; she was considered a royal sympathizer, and was arrested during the French Revolution in 1794, barely escaping the guillotine herself before she was employed to make death masks of the famous victims of the guillotine. After extensively touring the British Isles with her collection, she founded Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in London in 1835. In 1850, she died in her sleep at the age of 88 in London.
- December 1, 1847 – Christine Ladd-Franklin born, mathematician, logician, psychologist, and feminist; noted for theories on the development of the color sense of human beings, and theories which accounted for color-blindness in some individuals. Author of Color and Color Theories. In 1883, she also published an original logic method for reducing all syllogisms to a single formula. Advocate of equality for women within the scientific community.
- December 1, 1847 – Agathe Backer Grøndahl born, Norwegian pianist and composer; she made her debut as a pianist with 26-year-old Edvard Grieg conducting the orchestra, and later became a student of Franz Liszt. During the 1870s and 1880s, she built an outstanding career as a pianist with a series of concerts in the Nordic countries, but also in London and Paris. George Bernard Shaw gave her enthusiastic reviews in his days as a music critic. She composed over 400 pieces, many of them song cycles.
- December 1, 1893 – Dorothy Detzer born, worked at Hull House investigating child labor infringements; national secretary of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF / 1924-1946); known as the “Lady Lobbyist” by members of Congress, respected for research and integrity – no personal favors, private dinners, or backroom deals.
- December 1, 1901 – Dorothy James born, American composer and music educator; known for Three Symphonic Fragments, The Jumblies (text by Edward Lear), Paul Bunyan, and Patterns. She taught music, theory, and composition at Eastern Michigan University (1927-1968).
- December 1, 1901 – Ilona Fehér born, Hungarian violinist and violin teacher; during WWII, she and her daughter were interned in a concentration camp in 1942, but they escaped in 1944, and joined Hungarian and Czech partisans until Hungary was liberated by the Soviet Union in 1945. In 1949, she emigrated to Israel to begin a new life as a violin teacher. She taught many outstanding violinists, including Pinchas Zukerman, Shlomo Mintz, and Hagai Shaham, and was also a frequent jurist at international violin competitions in Europe. Fehér died at age 86 in 1988. The Ilona Fehér Foundation was established in her honor in 2003 to award grants to promising young Israeli violinists, founded by Hagai Shaham and his wife Ittai Shapira, also a violinist.
- December 5, 1901 – Ida Carroll born, English double bassist, and university administrator. She was the President (1956-1972) of the Northern School of Music, and oversaw the school’s merger in 1973 with the Royal Manchester College of Music to become the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM). Carroll was the RNCM’s first Dean of Management (1973-1976). As a composer, she produced a substantial body of work, including several pieces for the double bass which became part of the instrument’s standard repertoire. She was a long-time supporter of the Abbeyfield Society, a charity which provides group housing and care homes for the elderly.
- December 1, 1910 – Dame Alicia Markova born as Lilian Marks, English ballerina and choreographer-director; notable for her career with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, and as Prima Ballerina for the company that would become the Royal Ballet; she was the first to perform several of Frederick Ashton’s early ballets.
- December 1, 1913 – Mary Martin born, American actress, singer, and Tony Award-winning Broadway star, who was the first to play Nellie Forbush in South Pacific, and Maria von Trapp in the Sound of Music. She is probably best remembered as Peter in the Broadway musical version of Peter Pan, because the show was recorded and shown several times on television in the 1950s and 1960s. Martin was a life-long Democrat, who supported Adlai Stevenson during his 1952 presidential campaign. She was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1973. Martin died of cancer in 1990 at age 76.
- December 1, 1917 – Geraldine McCollough born as Geraldine Hamilton; American sculptor and painter; she made her sculpting debut in 1963 at the Century of Negro Progress Exposition in Chicago. Her work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian and the National Woman’s Museum.
- December 1, 1919 – American-born Lady Nancy Astor takes her seat in the U.K. House of Commons, the first woman to serve as a Member of Parliament (1919-1945). Nancy Langhorne married Waldorf Astor in 1906, whose father William, scion of the very wealthy American Astor family, became a British subject, and was raised to the British peerage in 1916-1917 for his many philanthropic activities. Nancy Astor appealed to voters on the basis of her earlier war work with Canadian soldiers, charitable work, her financial resources for the campaign, and her ability to improvise. Her audiences appreciated her wit and ability to turn the tables on hecklers.
- December 1, 1919 – Lurlean Hunter born, African-American singer, in 1951, she was featured performer with George Shearing and his quintet at Birdland; in 1961, she was under contract to Atlantic Records, and made her first album “Blue and Sentimental.”
- December 1, 1926 – Mother Antonia Brenner, ‘Madre Antonia,’ born as Mary Clarke, American Roman Catholic religious sister and activist, who had a dream in 1969 of being imprisoned awaiting execution, and Jesus visiting her. But she was barred by church rules from joining any religious order because she was an older divorced woman. She began the work she felt called to, caring for prisoners at the notorious maximum-security La Mesa Prison in Tijuana, Mexico, and founded an order for women like herself, the Eudist Servants of the Eleventh Hour. In addition to her normal work with the prisoners, she negotiated an end to a riot, and also persuaded the jail administrators to discontinue prisoner incarceration in substandard cells known as the tumbas (tombs). In 2003, her religious community was formally approved by Rafael Romo Munoz, Bishop of the Diocese of Tijuana. In September 2009, she received the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award, presented at the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego.
- December 1, 1930 – Dame Marie Bashir born, Australian physician, psychiatrist, and politician; director of the Community Health Services in the Central Sydney Area (1987-1990); Governor of New South Wales (2001-2014).
- December 1, 1933 – Violette Verdy born as Nelly Armande-Guillerm, French ballerina and choreographer; a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre (1957-1958), and the New York City Ballet (1958-1977); dance director of the Paris Opera Ballet.
- December 1, 1934 – Hilly Axwijk born, Surinamese-Dutch social worker and women's rights activist. She was the founder of the foundation "Surinaamse Vrouwen Bijlmermeer" (SVB) in 1982, which campaigned for the emancipation and equal rights of Surinamese-Dutch women and to give them better opportunities.
- December 1, 1935 – Sola Sierra born, Chilean human rights activist; she joined the communist party as a young woman, and campaigned for healthcare for the poor. When Augusto Pinochet overthrew the Chilean government in 1973 and assumed power, Sierra and her husband, a fellow communist, stayed in the country. Her husband and a friend disappeared after they were arrested in 1976, and Sierra became president of Familiares de detenidos desaparecidos (Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared), which worked to uncover the truth about what happened to the thousands of people who disappeared during Pinochet’s regime, and continued to struggle for answers and to bring those responsible to justice after Pinochet stepped down in 1990 under an amnesty agreement. When Pinochet was arrested in London in October 1998, charged with numerous human rights violations, tax evasion, and embezzlement, Sierra traveled to London to help a Spanish prosecutor campaign for his extradition. She died of a heart attack at age 63 in 1999.
- December 1, 1937 – Muriel Costa-Greenspon born, American mezzo-soprano who played many leading roles at the New York City Opera (1963-1993). In 1983, she and her husband Giorgio Costa, a carpenter for the Metropolitan Opera, won $1.7 million in the state lottery, but they continued working. After she retired from the stage in 1995, she joined the faculty of the Bronx High School of Science. She died at age 68 in 2005.
- December 1, 1937 – Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga born, Latvian politician and academic; the first woman President of Latvia (1999-2007), noted for her leading role in Latvia becoming part of the European Union and NATO; she was a professor of psychology at the University of Montreal (1965-1998), teaching psychopharmacology, psycholinguistics, scientific theories, experimental methods, and language and cognitive processes. Her experimental research focused on memory processes and language, and the influence of drugs on cognitive processes. At the same time she did scholarly research on semiotics, poetics, and the structural analysis of computer-accessible texts from an oral tradition—the Latvian folksongs. She is fluent in French, English and Latvian. In 1998, she returned to Latvia to become Director of the newly founder Latvian Institute. She was drafted by the Saeima (Latvian Parliament) as a candidate for President of Latvia in 1999, and won the election, then was re-elected in 2003. In 2005, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan named Vīķe-Freiberga as a member of his team of global political leaders helping to promote his comprehensive reform agenda. The Baltic States named her as their candidate for UN Secretary-General in 2006. She is a founding member and current President of the Club of Madrid, a forum of former Heads of State, and Co-Chair of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center, which is a global center for developing new ways to bring about peace.
- December 1, 1945 – Bette Midler born, American singer, songwriter, actress, and producer; founder of the New York Restoration Project, to revitalize neglected neighborhood parks, and founder of a coalition that saved a number of community gardens from being sold off by the city for commercial development. Midler is active in helping wounded U.S. military men and women, and their families, with resources and customizing homes to meet the needs of persons with disabilities. She has also done several tours for the USO.
- December 1, 1949 – Jan Brett born, American illustrator, best known for her children’s picture books, including The Mitten, The Hat, and Gingerbread Baby.
- December 1, 1950 – Manju Bansal born, Indian biophysicist specializing in the field of molecular biophysics; professor of theoretical Biophysics group in Molecular Biophysics unit of in the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Bansal is the founder and director of the Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology at Bangalore. She is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, and since 1998, a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (India), in Allahabad.
- December 1, 1952 – The New York Daily News reports the story of Christine Jorgensen, the first widely known case of sex reassignment surgery.
- December 1, 1954 – Dame Judith Hackitt born, British chemical engineer and civil servant; Chair of the UK Health and Safety Executive (2008-2016); Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering since 2010, and of the Institution of Chemical Engineers.
- December 1, 1955 – Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus to a white person in Montgomery, Alabama; her arrest sparks the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a landmark case in the modern U.S. civil rights movement.
- December 1, 1955 – Karen Tumulty born, American journalist; national political correspondent for The Washington Post. Previously wrote for Time magazine (1994-2010) on Washington DC politics, after 14 years at the Los Angeles Times (1980-1994).
- December 1, 1958 – Candace Bushnell born, American journalist, columnist, novelist, and television producer; her column for the New York Observer was anthologized as the bestselling book Sex and the City, which became the basis for the hit TV series Sex and the City.
- December 1, 1960 – Jane Turner born, Australian actress and comedy writer; best known for the Australian comedy series Kath & Kim (2002-2007), which she created, wrote, produced, and also starred in, with her longtime friend and collaborator, Gina Riley.
- December 1, 1961 – Safra Catz born, Israeli-born American business executive, currently Co-CEO of Oracle Corporation, since 2014.
- December 1, 1964 – Jo Walton born in Wales, Welsh-Canadian Fantasy and science fiction writer, winner of a Nebula, a Hugo, the World Fantasy Award, a Mythopoeic Award, and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer; noted for her Sulien, Small Change, and Thessaly series.
- December 1, 1970 – Sarah Silverman born, American stand-up comedian, actress, singer, producer, and writer. She is known for comedy that addresses social taboos and sexism, racism, religion, and politics. She produced and starred in The Sarah Silverman Program (2007-2010) on Comedy Central. During and since the 2016 election, she has become increasingly politically active. She campaigned for Bernie Sanders during the primaries, then later spoke in support of Hillary Clinton at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. In her convention speech, she urged other Sanders supporters to back Clinton and, later, amid some boos from some Sanders supporters, said: “Can I just say? To the ‘Bernie or Bust’ people, you’re being ridiculous.” Silverman then hosted the Hulu web television late-night talk show I Love You, America with Sarah Silverman (2017-2018).
- December 1, 1976 – Laura Ling born, American journalist and writer; in 2014, she became Director of Development at Discovery Digital Networks; previously producer of the Vanguard television documentary series; in 2009, she and fellow journalist Euna Lee were detained in North Korea, accused of illegally entering the country and “hostile acts” when they attempted to film refugees along to the North Korean border with China. They were tried and sentenced to 12 years in a labor prison, but U.S diplomatic efforts, and a visit to North Korea by former President Bill Clinton, secured their release after two months.
- December 1, 1985 – Janelle Monáe born, African-American singer, rapper, and actress; in 2016, she made her theatrical film debut in two high-profile productions – in Hidden Figures, she played NASA mathematician and aerospace engineer Mary Jackson, and she played Teresa in Moonlight. Hidden Figures was a box office success, and Moonlight won the Oscar for Best Picture at 2017 Academy Awards. In 2019, she won the GLAAD Outstanding Music Artist Award. In 2022, she came out as non-binary.
- December 1, 1989 – An attempted coup d'état against Philippine President Corazon Aquino by 3,000 soldiers loyal to disgraced former leader Ferdinand Marcos, and allied with members of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement, almost seized the presidential palace. Aquino requested U.S. support, and a special operations force was formed, and USAF F-4 fighters buzzed the rebel’s airfields, with orders to fire in front of any aircraft which attempted to take off, then shoot them down if they succeeded in becoming airborne. By December 9, the coup was completely defeated.
- December 1, 2010 – In the UK, Jo Shuter, headteacher at Quintin Kynaston school in St John’s Wood, launched a £2 million appeal to create an accommodation centre for the school’s homeless students. "We currently have around six students in the sixth form who are living in hostel accommodation, and another dozen with home situations so chaotic that they are on the precipice and could easily drop over," she said. "For a 16-year-old who becomes homeless, the council has no duty to provide foster care, so they end up living in a hostel for under-25s where they are expected to cook and fend for themselves. Two years ago, I was driving with my deputy head to a school basketball match and we started talking about a star pupil who was struggling academically because he had become homeless. We both have teenage sons and we mused how horrendous it would be for them to live in a hostel, how hard it would be for them to cope, and that's when the idea popped into my head." Before Shuter took the helm in 2002, Quintin Kynaston was “the place nobody wanted to send their children to,” but since Shuter took over, the school has been transformed, and the number of students has doubled. Her plan is to buy a large family house with a garden in nearby Willesden with up to 10 beds. She reckons the house will cost £1.5 million and that they'll need a £500,000 endowment to run it and employ a couple as proxy parents. Kieran Gibbs, the Arsenal football fullback who recently visited the school, and Madness singer Suggs, a former pupil, will help raise the cash. Shuter explained, “The ethos of our school is to create a family environment that replicates, if you like, the Jewish home in which I grew up and where I was given unconditional love despite being a terrible rebel. It's that sense of family as a safety net that I am looking to recreate for children that come from these deprived and sometimes dysfunctional families."
- December 1, 2016 – In London, CEO of CWM Anthony Constantinou was convicted of two counts of sexual assault, and given a 12 month sentence in a case compared to the atmosphere of sexual bullying in the Hollywood movie The Wolf of Wall Street. This was a retrial at the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales. In 2014, he pushed a woman against the frosted glass of a reception area and went on to grope and kiss her against her will. In 2015, while on bail for the first attack, Constantinou assaulted another woman during drinks after a business meeting. During the meeting, Constantinou threw her mobile against a wall and told her: “Don’t answer phones in my meeting.” Later that night, he picked up a big chunk of hot wasabi paste and shoved it in her mouth. At one point Constantinou went over and grabbed the woman, saying he could “get with her, kiss her and do what he wanted with her” because she did not work for the company. Judge Nicholas Cooke QC said: “Sexual bullying in the workplace blights lives. There are eminently foreseeable consequences.” Constantinou, who had denied all charges and declined to give evidence, made no reaction as he was jailed after the judge refused his lawyer’s plea for a suspended sentence.
- December 1, 2019 – Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat announced his resignation under pressure over the 2017 car bombing that killed anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Muscat said he would step down as leader of the governing Labor Party in January, and "in the days after I will resign as prime minister." Hours before the announcement, nearly 20,000 people protested in the capital, Valletta, demanding his departure. The slain reporter's family said Muscat's resignation wouldn't satisfy a population demanding an end to corruption. "People will be out in the streets again tomorrow," tweeted one of her sons, Matthew Caruana Galizia, also a journalist.
- December 1, 2020 – In Belgium, a Hungarian MEP (member of the European Parliament) was caught by police after fleeing a “sex party” above a Brussels bar, allegedly a “gay orgy.” Because more than four people were there, the gathering was a violation of Belgium’s COVID lockdown laws. József Szájer is a senior member of Fidesz, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s right-wing party. He was one of about 20 people, mainly men, including at least two other EU diplomats, attending the party. Szájer attempted to escape the scene by climbing out of one of the apartment’s windows, and was spotted by a passerby “fleeing along the gutter,” according to Sarah Durant, a spokeswoman for the Brussels region’s deputy public prosecutor. He was unable to produce identity papers for the police, and was escorted to his residence, where he produced a diplomatic passport, and claimed diplomatic immunity, but parliamentary immunity does not exempt him from obeying the lockdown laws. Szájer, who has a wife and child, had previously boasted that he personally drafted changes to the Hungarian constitution that defined marriage as being between a man and a woman, a year after Orbán’s government came to power. In the intervening decade, Orbán’s government had made “family values” a centrepiece of its political programme, frequently employing anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. Szájer resigned after the story ran in the Brussels press, without mentioning his brush with the law or the nature of the party, “I deeply regret violating the COVID restrictions – it was irresponsible on my part. I am ready to pay the fine that occurs. I apologise to my family, to my colleagues, to my voters ... The misstep is strictly personal. I am the one who owns responsibility for it.”
- December 1, 2021 – The U.S. Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case which the far-right six- justice majority on the court would use in June 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending federal protections for a woman’s right to choose, so each individual state determines its own laws on whether or not women may obtain abortions, and under what circumstances. Poll after poll showed that the majority of Americans want abortion to be legal in most circumstances, and overturning Roe became a factor in the failure of an expected Republican “Red Wave” in the November 2022 mid-term elections.
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- December 2, 1501 – Queen Munjeong born, Korean queen, Regent of Korea (1545-1565) for her son, King Myeongjong, who was 12 when he was crowned; Munjeong noted as a good administrator and for giving land which had been owned by the nobility to the common people, but she also remained the real power long after her son reached his majority.
- December 2, 1777 (traditional) – Philadelphia housewife and nurse Lydia Darragh saves the lives of General George Washington and his Continental Army when she reports to Washington overhearing the British planning a surprise attack on Washington’s army for the following day.
- December 2, 1884 – Ruth Draper born, noted solo performer and dramatist, whose range of original characters were much admired during her 40 years of entertaining audiences all over the world in multiple languages; The Italian Lesson, Three Women and Mr. Clifford, Doctors and Diets, and The Children’s Party are among her best-known works.
- December 2, 1886 – Josephine Roche born, first woman police officer in Denver (1912); she gained control of her late father’s Colorado coal mine operation (1927), and invited United Mine Workers to organize workers and negotiate contracts; she was appointed to supervise the Public Health Service as part of FDR’s administration, made recommendations for Social Security, and was an advocate for universal health coverage (1935).
- December 2, 1895 – Harriet Cohen born, British concert pianist and activist, who aided refugees from the Nazis during WWII; she played a duet concert with Albert Einstein in 1934 to raise money to bring Jewish scientists out of Nazi Germany; she was a Zionist and pleaded with the British to allow more Jewish refugees to settle in Palestine; for a concert tour in Russia in 1935, she began to learn music by Russian composers like Shostakovitch who were little-known outside of their country, and helped to popularize their music by playing it in her concerts all over Europe.
- December 2, 1900 – Herta Hammersbacher born, German landscape architect and lecturer/professor at TU Berlin (1946-1969); she worked on 3,500 private and public projects in Berlin, including the gardens at the Waldfriedhof Zehlendorf cemetery.
- December 2, 1909 – Joan Hoskyn Davies born on Robben Island, where her father was a medical doctor; South African archivist, beginning her career at the Cape Archives Depot (1935-1944), then transferred to the Transvaal Archives Depot (1944-1957); in 1957, she was appointed head of the new Liaison Department, and in 1966 became the head of the Cape Archives Depot, the first woman to earn the title ‘archivist’ and the first to head an archives depot, holding the position until her retirement in 1974; member of the executive committee of the Society of Civil Servants (1946-1959), and chair of the SCS central women’s committee (1957-1959).
- December 2, 1911 – Harriet Fleischl Pilpel born, lawyer, women’s rights activist; served on both Kennedy and Johnson Commissions on Status of Women, chaired Planned Parenthood Law Panel International; first vice chairwoman of ACLU’s National Advisory Council. In 1961, she argued on behalf of Planned Parenthood in Poe v. Ullman, asking the Supreme Court to reverse a Connecticut law criminalizing birth control. She wrote Planned Parenthood's amicus curiae brief for that case as well as that for 1965's Griswold v. Connecticut. Pilpel was convinced that the right to privacy upheld in Griswold could be extended to a woman's right to abortion. She put abortion on the ACLU Biennial Conference agenda in 1964 (the board did not take up the issue until 1967). Pilpel wrote Planned Parenthood’s amicus brief for Roe v. Wade, strategizing with Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee.
- December 2, 1917 – Sylvia Syms born, African American jazz singer who received informal training from Billie Holiday, and was hired by Mae West for a part in a revival of her Broadway hit Diamond Lil. In 1956, Syms signed a contract with Decca Records. Frank Sinatra called her “the world’s greatest saloon singer” and conducted her 1982 album Syms by Sinatra. She had a lung removed in 1972, but still performed in dinner theatre and night clubs until she had a heart attack while on stage at New York’s Algonquin Hotel’s Oak Room, and died at age 74 in 1992.
- December 2, 1921 – Isabella Karle born, American chemist; noted for her Symbolic Addition Procedure which is now the method of choice for structure determination from X-ray diffraction data on crystalline materials, even in computerized programs. The procedure dramatically increased the speed and accuracy of chemical and biomedical analysis. Her work has had a significant impact on the fields of molecular biology, chemistry, physics, metallurgy, geology, genetics, and pharmacology, and contributed to the discoveries of new drugs to combat many diseases. In 1969, she determined the crystal structure of toxins found in the venom of frogs in South America, which are now used in the study of nerve transmission.
- December 2, 1923 – Maria Callas born, Greek-American operatic soprano, “La Divina,” famous for her bel canto voice, she won international acclaim for her dramatic interpretation of a wide range of roles.
- December 2, 1924 – Else Marie Pade born, Danish composer, noted for early electronic works; she was part of the Danish resistance in WWII, arrested in 1944, and sent to Frøslev prison camp (1944-1945). In the camp, she used her belt buckle to write music on her cell wall, creating songs which her fellow inmates sang to keep their spirits up. After the war, she studied composition at the Kongelige Danske Musikkonservatorium (Royal Danish Academy of Music).
- December 2, 1925 – Julie Harris born, American stage, screen, and television actress, whose first major role was as the 12-year-old girl in The Member of the Wedding on Broadway in 1950, and in the 1952 film. In a career that spanned over 60 years, she won five Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Play, appeared in many films, including East of Eden, The Haunting, Requiem for a Heavyweight, and The Hiding Place, and won eleven Primetime Emmy Awards for roles like Nora in A Doll’s House, and Queen Victoria in Victoria Regina. She also recorded her stage performance of Emily Dickinson in The Belle of Amherst for public television. Her distinctive voice was used in recordings of children’s books, and for documentaries, including the Ken Burns series, The Civil War; Brooklyn Bridge; and The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God. Harris was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1979, honored with the National Medal of Arts in 1994, and with a Special Lifetime Achievement Tony in 2002. She died at age 87 of congestive heart failure in 2013.
- December 2, 1939 – Yaël Dayan born, Israeli politician, peace activist, author, and newspaper columnist; member of the Knesset (1992-2003) and chair of the Committee on the Status of Women, campaigning for Israel’s sexual harassment law; chair of Tel Aviv city council (2008-2013); noted for her memoir, Israel Journal: June 1967.
- December 2, 1942 – Anna G. Jónasdóttir born, Icelandic political scientist, social theorist, and gender studies academic at GEXcel International Collegium for Advanced Transdisciplinary Gender Studies; author of Why Women Are Oppressed.
- December 2, 1945 – Penelope Spheeris born, American film director-producer, and screenwriter, primarily of documentaries, including her trilogy, The Decline of Western Civilization; she has also directed feature films, including Wayne’s World.
- December 2, 1948 – Elizabeth Berg born, American nurse who became a novelist; known for Durable Goods, a 1993 ALA Best Book of the Year, Talk Before Sleep, and The Last Time I Saw You.
- December 2, 1948 – Patricia Hewitt born in Australia, British Labour politician; after nine years as General Secretary of the National Council for Civil Liberties, she was elected as the first woman MP for Leicester West (1997-2010); Minister for Women (2001-2005), Secretary of State for Health (2005-2007).
- December 2, 1952 – Carol Shea-Porter born, U.S. Representative (Democrat-New Hampshire 2007-2011, 2013-2015, and 2017-2019). In June 2013, Shea-Porter voted against the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban abortions that take place 20 or more weeks after fertilization.
- December 2, 1960 – Deb Haaland born, American Democratic politician, member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe; U.S. Secretary of the Interior since March 2021, the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary; New Mexico 1st congressional district representative (2019-2021).
- December 2, 1963 – Ann Patchett born, American author and editor; her novel Bel Canto won the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction; also noted for The Patron Saint of Liars, and her non-fiction work, The Mercies. She was the editor of the 2006 volume of the anthology series The Best American Short Stories.
- December 2, 1967 – Mary Creagh born, British Labour politician; Member of Parliament for Wakefield since 2005; Labour Party Group Leader on Islington London Borough Council (2000-2004).
- December 2, 1969 – Ulrika Bergquist born, Swedish journalist and television presenter; newsreader on TV4 News.
- December 2, 1969 – Tanya Plibersek born, Australian Labor politician; Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Deputy Leader of the Labor Party since 2013; Minister for Health and Medical Research (2011-2013); Minister for Human Services and for Social Inclusion (2010-2011); Minister for Housing (2007-2010); Member of the House of Representatives since 1998.
- December 2, 1978 – Nelly Furtado born, Portuguese- Canadian singer-songwriter; two songs, “I’m Like a Bird” and “Turn Off the Light,” from her debut album, Whoa, Nelly!, were top-10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2000, and she won a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for “I’m Like a Bird.” Since then, she has sold over 40 million recordings worldwide. Furtado hosted a program about AIDS on MTV, and donated $1,000,000 CDN to Free the Children’s campaign to build girls’ schools in the Maasai region of Kenya. She is also a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism.
- December 2, 1980 – A Salvadoran death squad rapes and murders four American Catholic missionaries, three nuns and lay missionary Jean Donovan, who wrote to a friend shortly before they were murdered.
- December 2, 1988 – Benazir Bhutto is sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan, the first woman to head a democratic government in a Muslim majority nation.
- December 2, 2014 – In the UK, Labour MP Frank Doran was roundly criticised after saying that he was not sure the role of Fisheries Minister is “a job for a woman.” He then insisted that he wasn’t being sexist “because he knows the fishing industry very well.” Women and Equalities Minister Nicky Morgan demanded an apology from Doran, say his comments are “outrageous and deeply offensive, and seriously undermine our work to raise aspiration among young women and girls.” Defence Minister Anna Soubry said Mr. Doran was "talking nonsense and insulting women."
- December 2, 2019 – Outrage is growing in India, with demonstrations in Delhi, Bengalurur and Kolkata, over the gang rape and murder of a 27-year old woman, whose burned body was discovered at the end of November in Hyderabad. Four men, now in police custody, are accused of deflating her scooter’s tires to strand her so they could pretend to offer her help, then dragging her into an abandoned area, where they gang raped and then asphyxiated her. Her body was then set on fire, and dumped. In 2018, a survey by the Thomson Reuters Foundation rated India the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman. Campaigners for ending violence against women say the Indian government has failed to check the rising rate of crimes against women. Jyoti Badekar, a women’s rights activist from Mumbai, said the lack of women officers in the police is one of the factors fueling the problem. Tens of thousands of cases also remain stuck in courts. In 2017, the courts opened 18,300 new cases related to rape, but over 127,800 cases, many pending for years, remained unresolved at the end of the year.
- December 2, 2020 – An article in the Los Angeles Times cited a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that U.S. women have been leaving the workforce at nearly four times the rate of men during the COVD-19 pandemic. With so many women laid off, sidelined, or stepping away to manage remote schooling or care for their families, men have to stand up as allies to ensure that gender equality in the workplace isn’t set back a generation. The corrosive effect of this downturn is already evident. The wage gap is growing, and is nearly back where it was almost 20 years ago by some economists’ estimates. Men, meanwhile, are 2.3 times more likely than women to say that working from home during the pandemic has been positive for their careers. These are not “women’s issues.” These are issues that demand men play a role in disrupting the status quo. Men may believe in gender equality but are too often missing when it comes to taking action. There are evidence-based strategies that men can employ now to advocate for women in their workplace. First, men need to proclaim their own family priorities. For too long, men have been reluctant to leave work boldly when they have obligations such as parent-teacher conferences or a sick child at home, slinking out the side door, and missing an opportunity to level the playing field. Men need to be clear at work about sharing family responsibilities with their partners, taking full parental leave, sick leave, and requesting flextime arrangements that support their partner’s career and household demands. When men publicly embrace these benefits, they destigmatize the domestic work that is linked to a “motherhood penalty” for women. Men in decision-making positions have to advocate for paid parental leave, creative telework arrangements, and childcare consortiums for all workers, which will end the perception that these are women-only issues.
- December 2, 2021 – Karen McDonald is the Oakland County prosecutor in the case against a 15-year-old boy being tried as an adult after he killed four students and injured six other students and a teacher in a shooting rampage on November 30 at Oxford High School in suburban Detroit, Michigan. McDonald is charging the shooter with the crime of terrorism, and considering charges against his parents for improperly securing the 9mm Sig Sauer semi-automatic handgun and 50 rounds of ammunition used in the mass shooting, and ignoring their son’s need for mental health treatment. These charges are rarely invoked in school shootings, but McDonald said in an interview that the rampage also traumatized the students and teachers who were not shot, and declared “If that’s not terrorism, I don’t know what is.” She added, “There is no playbook about how to prosecute a school shooting.”
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- December 3, 1810 – Louisa Cheves McCord born, American author, poet, and Confederate political propagandist from South Carolina. She was a regular contributor to the Southern Quarterly Review and the Southern Literary Messenger. She also published a book of poetry, My Dreams; a translation from the French of Bastiat’s Sophisms of the Protective Policy; and Caius Gracchus, a five-act tragedy. She had a better education than most girls of the time; having studied with French refugees, she was fluent in French, and had such a passion for learning, especially in mathematics, that she was given the same mathematical instruction as her brothers. Her father was a politician, and all the South Carolina political leaders of the day gathered frequently at her house, so she thoroughly absorbed the political views of men like John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay. McCord wrote on the subject of “political economy,” the argument that a sudden end to the slave economy would have a killing economic and social impact on the South, and if all the slaves were freed, there would be widespread unemployment, uprisings, bloodshed, and anarchy, as compared to the happy state of the majority of slaves under the care of their benignly paternalistic owners. Ironically, McCord also wrote of the “separate spheres” of Man and Woman: a woman didn’t need any political rights because politics were outside her domestic sphere.
- December 3, 1838 – Octavia Hill born, British social reformer, advocate for the working poor, especially for improving housing, and saving open green spaces for recreation.
- December 3, 1842 – Phoebe Apperson Hearst born, American suffragist, feminist, and philanthropist; the daughter of a store owner in Missouri, she studied to be a teacher. She met George Hearst when he returned to Missouri to care for his dying mother, and they were married in 1862. They moved to California, where George became a very successful miner, and later became a U.S. senator. Their only child was William Randolph Hearst. She was a major benefactor and director of the Golden Gate Kindergarten Association. In 1902, Phoebe Hearst funded construction of a building for teacher training, and to house kindergarten classes and the association's offices, administering 26 kindergartens at the time of the San Francisco earthquake in 1906. She was a major benefactor of the University of California, Berkeley, and its first woman regent, serving on the board from 1897 until her death. That year, she contributed to establishment of the National Congress of Mothers, which evolved eventually into the National Parent-Teacher Association. She donated more than two hundred objects to the Penn Museum, items such as Anasazi ceramics excavated from the Cliff Palace site of Mesa Verde, Colorado. Later, she also funded a University of Pennsylvania Museum expedition to Russia, and sent the Aztec specialist, Zelia Nuttall, to Moscow to set up exchanges between Russian museums and the Penn Museum. Hearst was a “moderate” feminist, believing that women should have financial independence, and the right to vote “to protect homes and children,” but didn’t think women should run for office. She died at age 76 in 1919.
- December 3, 1842 – Ellen Swallow Richards born, American chemist; pioneer in sanitary engineering, the first to apply chemistry to the study of nutrition, and the founder of the home economics movement in the United States. The first woman admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), she graduated with a B.S. in 1873, and stayed on as a chemistry assistant. Richards set to work analyzing Boston’s water supply, an early contribution to the field of ecology. In November 1876, she created the Woman’s Laboratory at MIT where women could learn the rudiments of science. In 1884, MIT made Richards its first woman faculty member. She helped develop a new curriculum in air, water, and sewage chemistry. However, she also saw the home and child-rearing as complex and important work, saying the women who did it should be educated. Richards spent thirty years developing the concept of domestic science.
- December 3, 1857 – Mathilde Kralik born, Austrian composer, pianist, poet, and hymnist; studied at the Conservatory of the Society of Friends of Music (1876-1878), graduating with a diploma in composition and a Silver Society Medal; many of her songs and chamber works were popular with fin de siècle concert-goers in Austria, but not well-known outside her homeland. Interest in her work declined after WWI.
- December 3, 1895 – Anna Freud born in Austria, Austrian-English psychologist and psychoanalyst; pioneer in child psychoanalysis, and one of its first and foremost practitioners. She also made fundamental contributions to understanding how the ego, or consciousness, functions in averting painful ideas, impulses, and feelings. Important in her own right, but diverging from her father in emphasizing the role of the ego (as opposed to id forces) in psychological functioning. Her book The Ego and Mechanisms of Defense (1936) laid the groundwork for ego psychology.
- December 3, 1895 – Te Ata born, interpreter of Cherokee, Chickasawa, Creek, and Choctaw traditions and dance in theatrical performances which entertained and educated. She inspired Eleanor Roosevelt, and impressed visiting British royalty.
- December 3, 1900 – Karna Birmingham born, Australian artist, illustrator, and print maker; best known for her pen-and-ink drawings and her illustrations of children’s books. She wrote and illustrated Skippety Songs in 1934, but in 1938, she contracted trachoma, an infection that roughens the inner eyelid, which damaged the cornea, limiting her sight and her career.
- December 3, 1910 – Freda du Faur becomes the first woman to scale Aoraki (Mount Cook) in New Zealand. An Australian mountaineer, she was one of the leading climbers of her day.
- December 3, 1923 – Moyra Fraser born in Sydney, Australia, but her family emigrated to the UK when she was six months old. She earned a scholarship with Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1937, and joined the company, making her solo debut in Giselle. In 1946, she left ballet to perform in musicals and plays, and appeared onstage with the Old Vic Company (1959-1960) in As You Like It, The Double Dealer, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. She also played a wide variety of roles in film and television, including the BBC comedy As Time Goes By (1992-2005), as the sister-in-law of Jean, the female lead played by Judi Dench. Fraser died in 2009 at age 86.
- December 3, 1937 – Morgan Llywelyn born in the U.S., American-Irish author of historical fantasy, historical fiction, and historical non-fiction, who writes for adults and young readers, including Lion of Ireland, a New York Times bestseller; The Horse Goddess, winner of ALA Best Novel for Young Adults award; and Strongbow: The Story of Richard and Aoife, winner of the Bisto Award for Excellence in Children’s Literature.
- December 3, 1938 – Sally Shlaer born, American mathematician, software engineer; at Los Alamos National Laboratory, she designed and implemented an operating system to operate an electron accelerator to work in real time; later, she led a team of software developers in building a new control system for the subway of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit System; co-developer of the Shlaer-Mellor method of software development and project management.
- December 3, 1942 – Alice Schwarzer born, German journalist, feminist, author, and founder-publisher of the feminist journal EMMA. She is also a columnist for the influential German tabloid Bild (Picture), which is one of the best-selling newspapers in Europe. As a child, she was evacuated to Bavaria during WWII. She began her career in journalism in France, and was one of the founding members of Mouvement de Liberation des femmes (MLF, the French Feminist Movement). She was one of the 340 signers of the declaration that they had undergone illegal abortions, part of the successful campaign to legalize abortion in France, and a similar declaration in West Germany, which also resulted in a temporary legalization, but the legislation was struck down in 1975 by the German Constitutional Court. She is noted for her book, Der kleine Unterschied und seine großen Folgen (The little difference and its huge consequences), which was translated into 11 languages, and made her well-known not only in Germany, but across Europe. She is an advocate for women’s economic self-sufficiency, and in favor of banning pornography.
- December 3, 1954 – Grace Andreacchi born, American novelist, poet, and playwright; Music for Glass Orchestra, Raphael and Tobias, Songs for a Mad Queen.
- December 3, 1956 – Ewa Kopacz born, Polish Civic Platform politician, and pediatrician; the second woman Prime Minister of Poland (2014-2015); Leader of the Civic Platform Party (2014-2016); the first woman Marshal of the Sejm (Polish Parliament’s lower house – 2011-2014); Minister of Health (2007-2011) Deputy to the Sejm (2001-2014).
- December 3, 1959 – Four women – Kafi Benz, Joan Kelly, Esty Weiss, and Betty White (not that Betty White) – are expelled, for voicing objections, from a meeting in Newark that had been organized to generate support for building a major regional airport which would accommodate large jet aircraft on the Great Swamp, a pristine watershed area formed at the end of the last major ice age in North America (approximately 75,000 to 11,000 years ago). The women were all members of the newly-formed Jersey Jetport Site Association, which opposed the development of the airport in the swamp. Their ejection from the meeting backfired, as the reports in the press of their expulsion were what first brought public attention, and that of the North American Wildlife Federation (NAWF), to the development plan. NAWF formed a Great Swamp Committee early in 1960, and the two organizations worked together to buy as much of the land as possible and donate it to the federal government to qualify for perpetual protection as a wildlife refuge. Arizona Representative Stewart Udall championed their cause in Congress. In May, 1964, now Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall oversaw the official dedication of the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, the first federal wilderness area within the U.S. Department of the Interior.
- December 3, 1960 – Daryl Hannah born, American actress, best known for her performance as the mermaid in Splash. Her credits include Legal Eagles, Wall Street, Roxanne, High Spirits, Steel Magnolias, and Kill Bill. Hannah wrote, directed, and produced a short film titled The Last Supper, and was the director, producer, and cinematographer for the documentary Strip Notes. She is also an environmental activist, with a weekly blog called DHLoveLife which features sustainable solutions. Her home runs on solar power, and she is a vegan. In June, 2006, Hannah was arrested for her involvement with over 350 farmers, their families, and supporters, confronting authorities trying to bulldoze the largest urban farm in the U.S., located in South Central Los Angeles. The farm had been established in the wake of the 1992 L.A. riots to allow people in the city to grow food for themselves, but the property was sold to a developer who wanted to build a warehouse there. Even when activists raised the money to meet his asking price, he refused to sell. In 2008, she was with a Sea Shepherd crew as part of Operation Mushashi, which opposed Japanese whaling. Hannah is also involved in efforts to end sex trafficking and exploitation.
- December 3, 1960 – Julianne Moore born, American Academy Award winning actress, and author of the Freckleface children’s book series; she is a pro-choice activist, and a campaigner for LGBT rights, sensible gun laws, and a supporter of the Parkland students campaign. Moore also works with Everytown for Gun Safety.
- December 3, 1967 – Marie Françoise Ouedraogo born, Burkinabé mathematician and academic in the Mathematics Department of the University of Ouagadougou; president of the African Mathematical Union Commission on Women in Mathematics in Africa (2009-present).
- December 3, 1974 – Lucette Rådström born, Swedish journalist and television presenter for TV4 since 1998.
- December 3, 1985 – Amanda Seyfried born, American actress and singer; her acting career began at age 15 on the soap operas As the World Turns and All My Children. Her film debut was in the 2004 movie Mean Girls. She has since appeared in over two dozen films, including Mama Mia, Letters to Juliet, Gone, The Art of Racing in the Rain, and the 2012 film of Les Misérables. She has spoken publicly about her struggles with anxiety, panic attacks, and stage fright, and is a board member of INARA, an NGO which provides medical services for children wounded in war zones, focusing on refugee children from Syria.
- December 3, 2008 – J.K. Rowling’s short story collection, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, went on sale. Rowling announced that proceeds from the book would fund her charity Children's High Level Group (renamed Lumos in 2010), which is dedicated to ending institutionalization of children worldwide.
- December 3, 2019 – The Center for American Progress issued an agenda “What Women Need” developed by Shilpa Phadke, Robin Bleiweis, and Nora Ellman to address the immediate needs of women and families during the Coronavirus Pandemic, and the broader policy solutions needed to ensure long-term health, safety, economic security, and equality. Their ideas range from expanding healthcare coverage and maternal healthcare, including access to abortion, contraception, and childcare; to stopping gun violence, gender-based violence, and discrimination based on gender, race, and ethnicity.
- December 3, 2020 – The International Golf Federation Board elected Annika Sörenstam, who won ten major women’s golf championships before her retirement, as its new President. Her term began January 1, 2021. IGF Board Chairman Jay Monahan said, “... we are thrilled to have someone as accomplished and universally respected as Annika Sörenstam to move into the role as IGF President. As a generational talent in women’s golf, Annika played a prominent role in golf’s successful Olympic bid by serving as a Global Ambassador with Jack Nicklaus, and since retiring from competition has been dedicated to promoting women’s golf at all levels through her foundation. She is the ideal person to succeed Peter [Dawson] in this role.” Sörenstam joined only two other women Presidents in the Olympic Movement, Marisol Casado and Kate Caithness, heads of World Triathlon and the World Curling Federation respectively. Founded in 1958, the IGF is composed of 151 Member Federations, from 146 countries, representing more than 60 million people who play golf. All national golf federations affiliated with the IGF are being included in the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) of their countries. The IGF is recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the international federation for golf.
- December 3, 2021 – The proposal to make Barbados a republic had been postponed time and again for decades. But in the midst of the global pandemic which devastated the Caribbean island’s tourist-driven economy, Mia Mottley, her country’s first woman Prime Minister, oversaw the transition of Barbados to a republic, ending the 396 year reign of the British monarchy over the island nation. The country’s first president, Dame Sandra Mason, was sworn in by the chief justice and took the oath of allegiance to her country as hundreds of people in the capital cheered, a 21-gun salute was fired, and the national anthem played. President Mason said in her inauguration speech, “Our country must dream big dreams and fight to realise them.”
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- December 4, 1777 – Juliette Bernard Récamier born, French leader of a salon that attracted the leading literary and political figures of Paris; she became an icon of neoclassicism; married at age 15 to Jacques-Rose Récamier, a banker who was almost 30 years her senior; apparently the marriage was never consummated. In spite of her husband’s heavy financial losses, beginning in 1805, and his death in 1830, which left her in even more reduced financial circumstances, she continued to receive visitors in her apartment in a building that had been a convent, where she lived from 1819 until her death from cholera in 1849. The récamier, a type of chaise longue, is named for her.
- December 4, 1829 – In the face of fierce local opposition, British Governor-General Lord William Bentinck issues a regulation declaring that anyone who abets suttee in Bengal is guilty of culpable homicide – the rest of British India follows his lead.
- December 4, 1865 – Edith Cavell born, British nurse, executed by the Germans for helping Allied soldiers escape over enemy lines during WWI.
- December 4, 1882 – Constance Davey born, Australian psychologist who started the special education classes in South Australia, and developed university courses on working with special needs children for teachers and social workers; author of Children and Their Law-makers, published in 1956.
- December 4, 1883 – Katharine Susannah Prichard born in Fiji, Australian author; co-founding member of the Communist Party of Australia, and member of the Movement Against War and Fascism; noted for her political activism, organizing left-wing women’s groups and unemployed workers, for her novels, Working Bullocks and Coonardoo, and her short story collection, Kiss on the Lips. Because of her political activities, she was frequently harassed by Western Australia police, and the Australian government kept a surveillance file open on her from 1919 until her death in 1969.
- December 4, 1907 – Jo Boer born as Johanna Maria Boer in Surabya, East Java; Dutch novelist. She was two years old when her mother moved with her to the Hague. Her first novel Catharina and the Magnolias was published in 1938. Boer lived in North Africa for several years, worked for the UK Royal Navy during WWII, and after the war worked for the Dutch embassy in Paris. Her other novels include World’s Fair, Image and Mirror Image, and Cross or Coin, which won the inaugural Bijverberg Prize for Best Novel Written in Dutch in 1948.
- December 4, 1920 – Jeanne Sobelson Manford born, teacher, gay rights activist, and co-founder of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), for which she was awarded the 2012 Presidential Citizens Medal.
- December 4, 1922 – Lucille Atcherson becomes the first woman U.S. Diplomatic Consular Officer, at the Bern legation in Switzerland, then she later served in Panama. A woman suffragist, and a WWI volunteer who helped wounded Americans and French civilian war survivors, for which she was honored with Medaille de la Reconnaissance Francaise.
- December 4, 1939 – Joan Brady born in San Francisco, American-British author; the first woman and first American to win the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for her novel Theory of War (1993).
- December 4, 1945 – Roberta Bondar born, Canada’s first woman astronaut, and the first neurologist in space, aboard NASA Space Shuttle Discovery in 1992. She served as NASA’s head of space medicine (1993-2004).
- December 4, 1947 – Jane Lubchenco born, American environmental scientist and marine ecologist; Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Undersecretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere (2009-2013).
- December 4, 1956 – Nia Griffith born in Ireland of Welsh parents, British Labour politician; MP for Llanelli (2005 to present); Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages since 2015 (she speaks English, Welsh, Italian, French, and Spanish); her chief concerns are climate change, and the impact of industry. She is a leading Welsh LGBTQ figure.
- December 4, 1961 – ‘The Pill,’ oral contraceptives for women, become available on the National Health Service in Britain.
- December 4, 1966 – Suzanne Malveaux born (twin sister of Suzette M. Malveaux); American television journalist; former NBC Pentagon correspondent; moderator of the 2007 National Association of Black Journalists convention; a key reporter in CNN’s 2004 and 2006 election coverage; CNN White House correspondent (2000-2008); co-anchor of Around the World (2012-2014).
- December 4, 1966 – Suzette M. Malveaux born (twin sister of Suzanne Malveaux); lawyer and professor of law at the Columbus School of Law; expert on civil rights law and class action litigation; appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, a gender discrimination in pay and promotion suit.
- December 4, 1973 – Kate Rusby born, English folksinger and songwriter; known for her songs “Who Will Sing Me Lullabies?,” “I Courted a Sailor,” “The Lark,” and “Underneath the Stars.”
- December 4, 1978 – Following the murder of Mayor George Moscone, Dianne Feinstein is sworn in as San Francisco’s first woman mayor.
- December 4, 2011 –Hundreds of protesters in Singapore demonstrate against sexual violence against women, as part of the global ‘SlutWalk’ movement, a rare public protest in the tightly-controlled city state.
- December 4, 2015 – Defense Secretary Ash Carter announces that the Pentagon is opening all combat jobs in the U.S. military to women. Women who meet entry standards will now be able to serve in any unit, including the elite Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, and the Marine Corps infantry.
- December 4, 2019 – Peloton, the American exercise equipment and media company, lost about $1.5 billion USD in share price since the November 2019 release of its holiday commercial, “The Gift That Gives Back” which showed a wife receiving a Peloton bike for Christmas from her husband, and recording a video diary of herself using the bike, then a year later, proclaiming that she "didn't realize how much this would change me." Critics were quick to attack for the ad for implying that her husband was dissatisfied with her physical appearance. The ad was called “old-fashioned and tone deaf,” and a reminder of the “tips for keeping your man” from the 1950s.
- December 4, 2020 – In Iran, over the past year alone, several widely publicized instances of violence against women have drawn national attention and outrage. Authorities have pledged to review discriminatory laws that leave women at risk of domestic violence, and draft a comprehensive law to protect women. Iranian women’s rights activists have campaigned for such a law for 16 years. President Hassan Rouhani’s administration has been working on the draft law since the 2013 election. The cabinet has been reviewing the draft “Protection, Dignity and Security of Women against Violence” bill since September 17, 2019, after the judiciary announced that it had completed its review and submitted the bill back to the cabinet. Masoumeh Ebtekar, the vice president for women and family affairs, said in August that the submission of the bill to the parliament was “imminent.” Authorities were urged act during the international December 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. “For decades, Iranian women have been waiting for comprehensive legislation to prevent violence against women and prosecute their abusers,” said Tara Sepehri Far, Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch. “With the growing national attention to this important issue, the law is long overdue, and parliament should not waste any time in adopting it.” The bill was approved by the administration of President Hassan Rouhani in January 2021, but still faced possible opposition by the conservative majority in parliament, or by the powerful Guardian Council, consisting of six experts in constitutional law, and six experts in Islamic law, which has veto power over legislation passed by parliament.
- December 4, 2021 – In a rare interview with foreign media, Sanna Marin – who briefly became the youngest world leader when she became prime minister of Finland at age 34 – said her country is committed to preserving its comprehensive welfare system, and sees the development and export of green technology as the key to the country’s future prosperity. She noted that while her country was named as the happiest country in the world in April 2021 by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Finland “wanted to do better when it comes to equality ... We have always worked for equality in Finland, and I think it’s also important in the future, and not only the equality of men and women, or the genders, but also the equality of minority groups in society. We have to make sure that structures don’t act as barriers to people. So there are many things to do.” A new parental leave system that is expected to come into effect in 2022 will increase the time allowed to be used by fathers from 54 days to a minimum of 97 days. “The idea would be that mothers and fathers would spend the same amount of time at home with their small children, so that both can have the same opportunities in their career, but also so that we can [narrow] the gender pay gap,” said Marin.
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- December 5, 1556 – Anne Cecil de Vere born, Countess of Oxford; her father was William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, who was chief adviser to Queen Elizabeth I, and her mother was Mildred Cooke, Lady Burghley, who was a translator of Greek and Latin. Lady Burghley was responsible for the education of her children, so Anne had a much better education than most of the girls of her time; in addition to Greek and Latin, her studies included philosophy, science, literature, and music. She married Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, at the age of 15, in 1571, but continued to reside with her parents. When she gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Elizabeth, in 1575, her husband was touring the continent. When he returned, he accused her of adultery, and declared the child wasn’t his, possibly because Burghley had failed to save his cousin, Thomas Howard, from execution for Howard’s part in the Ridolfi plot to assassinate the Queen, and put Mary, Queen of Scots, on the English throne. In 1576, de Vere separated from Anne, after rumors spread of his accusations against her. He refused to allow her to be present at court, in spite of pressure from her powerful father. While they were separated, he began an affair with Anne Vavasour, the Queen’s Lady of the Bedchamber, who gave birth to his illegitimate son in 1581. This scandal caused the Queen to send both of them to the Tower of London, but de Vere was soon released, and Anne wrote to him, beginning a correspondence which led to their reconciliation, and his acknowledging paternity of their daughter. She gave birth to four more children, but two of them died in infancy, including her only son. Anne herself died at age 31, of unknown causes, in 1588. Her father was so stricken with grief at her death he was temporarily unable to carry out his ministerial duties in the Privy Council. Her three surviving daughters were raised in Burghley’s household, and later married into the peerage. Three years after her death, Edward de Vere married Elizabeth Trentham.
- December 5, 1822 – Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz born, American naturalist; co-founder in 1894 and first president (1900-1903) of Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts; co-founder, with her husband Louis Agassiz, of the Anderson School of Natural History, and a marine laboratory in Buzzard’s Bay, Massachusetts. She was a major figure in the development of Radcliffe as the “Harvard Annex” in 1894, so Radcliffe’s women students could be taught by Harvard professors. With Mary Fairfax Somerville and Maria Mitchell, one of the first three women members of the American Philosophical Society. Her books include A First Lesson in Natural History, and A Journey in Brazil.
- December 5, 1830 – Christina Rossetti born, English poet and author; noted for her poetry collection, Goblin Market and Other Poems, which was lauded by Gerald Manley Hopkins, Algernon Swinburne, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson; she spoke against slavery, the exploitation of underage girls in prostitution, and cruelty to animals. Her poem “In the Bleak Midwinter” was set to music as a Christmas carol by Gustav Holst.
- December 5, 1890 – Mildred Scott Olmsted born, American Quaker, woman suffragist, birth control advocate, civil rights and peace activist, and promoter of nonviolent protest. She was the first executive director of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and served on boards of SANE, which she helped to found, and the ACLU.
- December 5, 1896 – Ann Nolan Clark born, American writer and teacher who taught at the Tesuque Pueblo school, a first-through-fourth-grade one-room-schoolhouse, for 25 years; many of her stories were inspired by her students; the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs published 15 of the books based on her Pueblo experiences; In My Mother’s House, illustrated by Pueblo artist Velino Herrera, was a 1942 Caldecott Honor book.
- December 5, 1912 – Kate Simon born in Poland, best-selling American travel writer and autobiographer; her first book, the memoir Bronx Primitive: Portraits in a Childhood, was nominated for a National Book Critics Award. Also noted for Fifth Avenue: A Very Social Story; A Renaissance Tapestry: The Gonzaga of Mantua; and England's Green and Pleasant Land.
- December 5, 1918 – Charity Adams Earley born, first African-American woman to become an officer in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. As a Major, she commanded the first battalion of black American women to serve overseas during WWII. She fought against segregation in the army, and was once threatened with a court-martial by a general who told her he was “going to send a white first lieutenant down here to show you how to run this unit" and she responded, "Over my dead body, sir." She countered his threat by beginning to file charges against him for using "language stressing racial segregation" and ignoring a directive from Allied headquarters. They agreed to drop the matter. After the war, she earned a master’s degree in psychology, and taught at the college level. She also volunteered for United Way, the United Negro College Fund, the Urban League, and the YWCA.
- December 5, 1926 – Felicia Adetoun Ogunsheye born, Nigerian professor of Library and Information Science at the University of Ibadan; she was the first woman to graduate from the Yaba College of Technology, the first Nigerian woman to earn BA and MA degrees at Newnham College, Cambridge University, and the first woman professor in Nigeria. She established the Abadina Media Resource Centre Library of the University of Ibadan. In 1973, she became a full professor at University of Ibadan. Appointed as the dean of faculty of education at Ibadan (1977-1979), the first woman to become a dean in any Nigerian university. Noted for advocating that African libraries reinvent their foundations, getting away from the influence of their former colonial masters, and documenting oral data and cultures into the system.
- December 5, 1934 – Joan Didion born, American author and screenwriter; noted for her novels, Play It As It Lays, and The Year of Magical Thinking, which won the 2005 National Book Award for Nonfiction.
- December 5, 1935 – Mary McLeod Bethune, civil rights and women’s rights leader, becomes the founding president of the National Council of Negro Women in New York City, an advocacy group for more economic, educational, and civic opportunities for black women, which has grown to be an umbrella organization for community-based services and programs in the U.S. and Africa.
- December 5, 1943 – Eva Joly born as Gro Farseth in Norway; French politician for Europe Écologie-The Greens; Member of the European Parliament for Île-de-France; French juge d’instruction (investigating magistrate); outspoken critic of political corruption, advocate for stopping all nuclear energy production in France, and deriving 40% of France’s energy needs from renewable resources by 2020; also campaigning for higher tax rates on the wealthy and a minimum 17% corporate tax rate on multinational companies; author of “La Force qui nous manque” (The Force We Lack).
- December 5, 1951 – Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven born, Belgian artist known for painting, computer art, and video art; former member of noise band Club Moral.
- December 5, 1952 – Eva Dillner born in Stockholm, Swedish metaphysical author and contemporary artist, who lived as a teenager and young adult in the U.S. (1966-1982). She is noted for Våga Leva (Dare to Live); Meandering Mind; and Secrets of Transformation. She wrote her first book, God Put a Dream in My Heart, in 2008 during her recovery after breaking her ankle.
- December 5, 1953 – Gwen Lister born in South Africa, Namibian journalist, publisher, apartheid opponent, and freedom of the press activist; co-founder of The Namibian newspaper in 1985 and was the first female editor of a southern African newspaper. Some of Lister’s reporting landed her in jail without trial, including a 1988 report based on a secret document about planned new police powers. Revealing the plans “at least ensured they were never implemented,” she said. Lister is a founding member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and now heads the Namibian Media Trust, which trains journalists and promotes media freedom and access to information. The Nambian was fire bombed several times, the worst in 1991, after the paper published a story about a possible coup attempt; the perpetrators, who were never caught, used phosphorus grenades and burned the newsroom to the ground. She won the 1992 International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the 2004 Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women’s Media Foundation.
- December 5, 1955 – The Montgomery Bus Boycott begins, after the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat to a white person. Claudette Colvin, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith, all women who had been discriminated against by Montgomery bus drivers, agreed to become plaintiffs in a federal civil action lawsuit, bypassing the Alabama court system. Jo Ann Robinson, president of the Women’s Political Council in Montgomery, was already pushing for a boycott when Rosa Parks was arrested. She and other WPC members copied tens of thousands of leaflets calling for a one-day boycott to protest Parks’ arrest, and distributed them across the city. It was such an overwhelming success, that the boycott was continued by African Americans until December 20, 1956, when the federal district court ruling in Browder v. Gayle took effect. The ruling was appealed, up to the U.S. Supreme Court by the state and city, which affirmed in November, 1956, that the Alabama and Montgomery laws that segregated buses were unconstitutional.
- December 5, 1956 – Jeannette Wing born, computer scientist, leading figure in formal methods (mathematical analysis to improve reliability and robustness of a design or program); professor and Avanessians Director of the Data Science Institute at Columbia University; Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Research with oversight of its core research laboratories around the world and Microsoft Research Connections (2012-2017); on the faculty (1985-2012) then head of the Computer Science Department (2010-2012) at Carnegie Mellon. Worked with Barbara Liskov of the development of the Liskov Substitution Principle, published in 1993, and a strong promoter of computational thinking, expressing the algorithmic problem-solving and abstraction techniques used by computer scientists and how they might be applied in other disciplines.
- December 5, 1957 – Raquel Argandoña born, Chilean actress, television presenter, and Renovación Nacional politician; city councilor (1996-2000), then mayor (2000-2004) of Pelarco, Chile.
- December 5, 1961 – Laura Flanders born in England, American-based broadcast journalist, and non-fiction author; founding director of the women’s desk at the media watch group FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting). Noted for her books Blue Grit, and Real Majority, Media Minority: The Cost of Sidelining Women in Reporting.
- December 5, 1964 – Diane J. Humetewa born, first Native American woman to serve as a U.S. Attorney; currently Judge of the U.S. District Court for Arizona since 2014, appointed by Barack Obama; U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona (2007-2009), appointed by George W. Bush; Judge of the Hopi Appellate Court (2002-2007); Hopi Tribal Liaison in the office of the U.S. Attorney for Arizona from 1996 until her promotion to Senior Litigation Counsel (2001-2007). A graduate of the Indian Legal Program at Arizona State University’s College of Law, Humetewa is considered a national expert on Native American legal issues; she has instructed law enforcement and prosecutors on this topic.
- December 5, 1968 – Margaret Cho born, American comedian, author, and singer-songwriter; best known for her stand-up routines, with commentary on race and LGBT rights; creator and star of the sitcom All-American Girl (1994-1995); she has won awards for her humanitarian efforts on behalf of women, Asian Americans and the LGBT community; author of I’m the One That I Want and I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight.
- December 5, 1968 – Lydia Millet born, Canadian-American novelist; noted for her third novel, My Happy Life, which won the 2003 PEN Center USA Award for Fiction.
- December 5, 1979 – Sonia Johnson is formally excommunicated by the Mormon Church for her outspoken support of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.
- December 5, 1980 – Jessica Paré born, Canadian actress and singer; known for her co-starring roles on the television series Mad Men and SEAL Team. She grew up in Montreal, and speaks English and French. She has also appeared in films, including Stardom, Wicker Park, and Brooklyn. She is a feminist, and said in an interview, "of course I'm a feminist ... if you're not for the equal treatment of men and women, then you're a fascist."
- December 5, 2004 – The Civil Partnership Act comes into effect in the United Kingdom, and the first civil partnership is registered there, granting the same legal rights and responsibilities as civil marriage to same-sex couples.
- December 5, 2016 – In the UK, artist Helen Marten had already mounted three major exhibitions in 2016 before she won the Hepworth Prize for Sculpture; then two weeks later, she was announced as the 2016 winner of the prestigious Turner Prize.
- December 5, 2019 – A 23-year-old woman in Uttar Pradesh, India, on her way to testify against two men she accused of raping her, was set on fire by five men that she told authorities included the accused rapists. The medical superintendent of the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Hospital said, "She has 90 per cent burn injuries and we are taking utmost care. A team of doctors are observing her." She died of cardiac arrest on December 6, 2019. Swati Maliwal, chair of the Delhi Commission for Women said, "There are so many times that rapes have happened ... by people who were already convicted of rape, or who were already involved in a rape case and were out on bail. How do you ensure systems till the time, how do you ensure detriments until the time? There are no systems."
- December 5, 2020 – Faced with an explosion of seriously ill coronavirus patients in New Mexico hospitals, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has taken the first step toward the grim possibility of rationing care. In an executive order, the governor said she wants her medical advisory team to recommend “if and when” the state should activate “crisis care” standards. She said it was clear to her that she would need to take extreme measures to head off the “most serious emergency that New Mexico has ever faced.”
- December 5, 2021 – A report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that government policies in the UK made almost no difference in the gender pay gap for the last 25 years. Researchers compared official earning data for over 2 million people aged 20 to 55 between 1995 and 2019. The report found that the average working-age woman in the United Kingdom earned 40% less than her male counterpart in 2019 because: women worked 1.8 hours more unpaid work each day than men; they were paid 18% less pay per hour on average; their average hourly pay rate was £13.20 compared to £16.30 for men; and 83.5% of women are in paid work compared to 93% of men. “If you account for education attainment, there has been very little progress in reducing the gender earnings gap since 1995,” said Alison Andrew, co-author of the report and senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. “The highest female earners take home just 67p for every £1 that the best-paid men do, while fewer than one-quarter of men earn the same or less than the median woman.”
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- December 6, 1731 – Sophie von La Roche born in Bavaria, author of the first German novel known to be written by a woman, Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim (History of Lady Sophia Sternheim).
- December 6, 1815 – Jane Swisshelm born, suffragist, newspaper publisher, and journalist, wrote for women’s rights, and against slavery, capital punishment, and legal inequities, nursed wounded Union soldiers during the Civil War, was a close friend of Mary Todd Lincoln. In 1848, Jane Swisshelm started the Pittsburgh Saturday Visiter, a weekly newspaper that had a national following in abolitionist circles. In it she regularly and strongly attacked slavery and spoke out for women's rights. In 1850, Swisshelm became the first woman in the Senate press gallery. Though her wit and confident voice earned her a national following, the paper always struggled financially. After the birth of her daughter in 1851, she could not handle the strain of work, a failing marriage, and a small child at home, and, in 1856, the Visiter merged with the Pittsburgh Journal. After the Civil War, Swisshelm took a job working for the federal government, and founded the newspaper, The Reconstructionist. Her attacks in the Reconstructionist on President Andrew Johnson led to her losing the paper and being fired from her government job.
- December 6, 1875 – Evelyn Underhill born, English Catholic writer and pacifist; her best-known work, Mysticism, published in 1911, was widely read through the 1930s.
- December 6, 1878 – Elvia Carillo Puerto born, Mexican socialist politician and feminist activist; she had been married at age 13 and widowed by 21. She was the founder of the first feminist leagues in Mexico, including Liga Rita Cetina Gutierrez (League of Rita Cetina Gutierrez), named after one of Yucatan’s best-known educators, founded in 1919, which campaigned against prostitution, drug and alcohol abuse, superstition and fanaticism. The league offered talks on child care, economics, on hygiene for poor women, inspected schools and hospitals, and helped to establish a state orphanage. They also fought successfully for legalized birth control, and instituted family planning programs, as well as prenatal and post natal care for women. In 1923, Carillo became Mexico's first woman state deputy. She toured Southeastern Mexico organizing Mayan women, and setting up training programs to prepare them for voting and running for office. She also campaigned for land reform. But her brother Felipe Carrillo Puerto, who was governor of Yucatán, and who was committed to extending women’s rights, was assassinated in 1924, and the rights of women were revoked by the new governor, who also removed women from office. In 1925, Carillo was elected to the national Chamber of Deputies as a representative of San Luis Potosí; but she was denied the seat because federal suffrage and holding national office were restricted to men. For her contributions to Mexican government and history, she was officially decorated as a "Veteran of the Revolution." Carillo's tireless dedication to the revolution and women's movement earned her the nickname La Monja Roja (The Red Nun).
- December 6, 1884 – Cornelia Meigs born, American author, playwright, and academic; won the 1915 Drama League prize for The Steadfast Princess, 1933 Newbery Medal for Invincible Louisa, about Louisa May Alcott.
- December 6, 1887 – Lynn Fontanne born, English actress who usually starred on stage with her husband Alfred Lunt; she played 160 parts, many in plays created by playwrights especially for the couple. The Lunts were known for their use of overlapping dialogue – both speaking at the same time. Yet the audience would not miss a word. Great skill was required in order to bring this off. Lunt spoke in a slightly different rhythm and at a slightly different pitch than Fontanne; each modulated his or her volume level to accommodate the other; and, perhaps most difficult of all, they made the effect sound perfectly natural. During WWII, they left the U.S. in 1943 to give performances in London, and toured army camps in France and Germany in 1945.
- December 6, 1888 – Libbie Hyman born, American zoologist; noted for her comprehensive six-volume reference work, The Invertebrates, which covers most phyla of its subject. This work is important for its organization, description, and classification of invertebrates, and is still used as a reference today. Hyman continued her laboratory studies throughout her life, and published about 145 scientific papers. The sixth volume of The Invertebrates was her last, completed at the age of seventy-eight, when she was suffering from Parkinson’s disease. She died two years later, in 1969.
- December 6, 1893 – Sylvia Townsend Warner born, English novelist and poet; noted for Whether a Dove or a Seagull, and Summer Will Show, an early lesbian love story, set in Paris during the 1848 revolution.
- December 6, 1898 – Winifred Lenihan born, American actor, writer, and director; played Joan of Arc in the original 1923 American production of Saint Joan; directed radio plays; in 1925, became the first director of the Theater Guild's School of Acting; co-author of the play Blind Mice.
- December 6, 1904 – Ève Curie born, French-American journalist and pianist; her biography of her mother, Madame Curie, won the 1938 National Book Award for Non-Fiction; worked on behalf of UNICEF (1965-1979).
- December 6, 1905 – Elizabeth Yates born, American author and journalist; began her career contributing articles, mainly on travel, to The Christian Science Monitor and The New York Times; among her many books, written mostly for young readers, she is noted for Mountain Born, a Newbery Honor book in 1944, and Amos Fortune, Free Man, a biographical novel about a real person, which won the 1951 Newbery Medal for Excellence in American children’s literature.
- December 6, 1908 – Herta Taussig Freitag born in Austria, Austrian-American mathematician; professor of mathematics at Hollins College; known for her work on the Fibonacci numbers; she earned her master’s at the University of Vienna in 1934, and was working there until 1938, when her father, editor of Die Neue Freie Presse, came under threat by the Nazis for having editorialized against them, and she emigrated with her family to England, where she had to work as a maid because English immigration laws prevented her from entering the country as a teacher. Her father died in 1943, and she, with her mother and brother. moved to the U.S., where she was able to resume teaching mathematics at the Greer School (1944-1948). She earned a second master’s degree (1948) and her PhD (1953) from Columbia University. She joined the faculty at Hollins College in 1948, and later became a full professor and department chair. In 1962, she was the first woman to serve in her section as section president for the Mathematical Association of America; she was a frequent contributor to the Fibonacci Quarterly, which dedicated an issue to her for her 89th birthday (89 is a Fibonacci number).
- December 6, 1916 – Yekaterina Budanova born, Russian WWII fighter pilot. With five air victories, she was one of the world’s first two women fighter aces, with Lydia Litvyak. Budanova was shot down in 1943 near Novokrasnovka, and was buried there.
- December 6, 1917 – Tauba Biterman born in Poland to a Jewish family, who fled in 1939 to what is now the Ukraine in Russia, where she stayed on because she had a job, while the rest of her family moved deeper into Russia, so she was on her own when WWII started. She was first hidden, then passed off as a German from the Black Forest. She avoided being sent to a concentration camp by abandoning her identity, and living an underground existence. In 1948, she and her husband Judah, who was also a Holocaust survivor, emigrated to the U.S., and settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She spoke to hundreds of students and civic groups, never refusing a request to talk about her personal Holocaust experience because “it’s important for young people to know about the Holocaust so it shouldn’t happen again.” Biterman died in 2019 at the age of 102.
- December 6, 1917 – Eliane Plewman born in Marseille to an English father and a Spanish mother, British agent of Special Operations Executive (SOE) and member of the French Resistance working in the "MONK circuit" in occupied France during WWII. In spite of her tiny frame and lack of inches – she was just over five feet tall –her fierce determination got her through the same SOE training course as the men, and she passed the psychological tests with flying colours. In August, 1943, she parachuted into France. Plewman was involved in a number of highly successful sabotage missions but was arrested in March 1944, tortured by the Gestapo, and executed by the SS at Dachau Concentration Camp in September, 1944. She was posthumously honored with the King's Commendation for Brave Conduct, and the French Croix de Guerre 1939-1945 with bronze star.
- December 6, 1927 – Patsy Mink born, first Japanese-American Congresswoman (Democrat-Hawaii); she wrote the Women’s Educational Equity Act, and played a key role in enactment of Title IX, renamed posthumously the “Patsy Takemoto Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act.”
- December 6, 1938 – Oxana Yablonskaya born, Russian pianist who emigrated to the U.S. in 1977. Yablonskaya toured in concert and recital throughout the world and made numerous recordings. She taught as a member of the piano faculty at the Juilliard School for over 30 years, until her retirement in 2009.
- December 6, 1949 – Linda Barnes born, American mystery writer; noted for her Carlotta Carlyle series; her story “Lucky Penny” won the Anthony Award for Best Short Story, and A Trouble of Fools, her first Carlotta book, won the Edgar Award for Best Novel.
- December 6, 1950 – Helen Liddell born, Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke, Scottish Labour politician; British High Commissioner to Australia (2005-2009); Secretary of State for Scotland (2001-2003); MP for Monklands East (1994-1997); BBC Scotland economics journalist (1976-1977).
- December 6, 1951 – Wendy Ellis Somes born, worldwide producer of the Sir Frederick Ashton ballets Cinderella and Symphonic Variations, since 1994; she was a dancer (1970-1990), soloist, and principal ballerina with the Royal Ballet in London; retired from dancing in 1990.
- December 6, 1952 – Chiyoko Shio Satō born, Japanese manga artist, influential in the development of shōjo manga, and member of the women artists’ Post Year 24 Group. Her definitive works are Yumemiru Wakusei (The Dreaming Planet), and One Zero. She died from brain cancer at age 57 in 2010.
- December 6, 1953 – Sue Carroll born, English journalist, columnist at the Daily Mirror (1998-2011); she was The Sun’s Women’s editor and feature writer in the 1980s. She died of pancreatic cancer at age 58 in 2011.
- December 6, 1955 – Dame Anne Begg born, Scottish Labour politician; Member of Parliament for Aberdeen South (1997-2015); she has used a wheelchair since 1984 because of Gaucher’s disease, and was the first permanent wheelchair user in the House of Commons since 1880 (Arthur MacMorrough Kavanagh was the first – 1868-1880). Begg campaigned against disabled people being allowed to work for less than minimum wage if they so choose in order to establish themselves in employment, and in favour of allowing embryonic stem cells to be used in the research for treatments of diseases, including currently incurable conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease.
- December 6, 1959 – Deborah L. Estrin born, American computer scientist; Professor of Computer Science at Cornell Tech; co-founder of the non-profit Open mHealth. Estrin is known for her work on sensor networks, mobile health, and small data. She is one of the most-referenced computer scientists of all time, with her work cited over 118,000 times according to Google Scholar. Estrin was a Professor of Computer Science at UCLA between 2001 and 2013, where she was the founding director of the NSF-funded Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS). She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007, and inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2009. In 2012, Cornell Tech announced Estrin as the first academic hire to the high-tech campus in New York City. Among her awards are the National Science Foundation’s 1987 Presidential Young Investigator Award, the 2017 IEEE Internet Award, and a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2018.
- December 6, 1964 – Mall Nukke born, Estonian artist, painter, and printmaker; known for her paintings, collages, and installations.
- December 6, 1967 – Helen Greiner born in London, American robotic engineer; currently an advisor to the U.S. Army. She was co-founder of iRobot and former CTO of CyPhyWorks, a start-up company specializing in small multi-rotor drones for the consumer, commercial and military markets. During her tenure at iRobot, the company released the Roomba, the PackBot, and SUGV military robots. In 2014, Greiner was named a Presidential Ambassador for Global Leadership (PAGE) by US President Barack Obama. She was honored in 2008 with the Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision Award for Innovation for her work at iRobot.
- December 6, 1972 – Heather Mizeur born, American Democratic politician; member of the Maryland House of Delegates (2007-2015). She was Senator John Kerry’s Director of Domestic Policy, and wrote much of his health care platform for Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. Served as Takoma Park City Councilwoman (2003-2005).
- December 6, 1982 – Susie Wolff born, Scottish racing driver; she began in kart racing, and worked her way up to Formula Renault and Formula Three before moving to Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (German Touring Masters) for Mercedes-Benz. In 2012, she was signed by the Williams Formula One team to work as a development driver, took part in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in 2014, then announced her retirement from motorsport in 2015. In 2016, she joined Channel 4 in the UK to be an analyst for their F1 Coverage. In 2018, Wolff joined the Venturi Formula E Team as Team Principal.
- December 6, 1989 – Montreal Massacre: An anti-feminist gunman murdered fourteen women at the Ėcole Polytechnique, an engineering school affiliated with the Université de Montréal. Ten other women and four men were wounded. The killer entered a classroom and ordered the women and men to opposite sides of the classroom, separated nine of the women, and ordered the men to leave. Saying he was “fighting feminism,” he opened fire on the nine women, killing six of them. Then he went through the corridors, the cafeteria, and another classroom, targeting women for 20 minutes. He killed eight more women before killing himself. It was the deadliest mass shooting in Canadian history until an attack in Nova Scotia in 2020. Firearms regulations in Canada were strengthened and changes were made in police tactical response to shootings. December 6 is now Canadian National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, also called White Ribbon Day.
- December 6, 2009 – Aminatou Haidar, a Sahrawi human rights activist and outspoken advocate for the independence of Western Sahara, had been camped out at Lanzarote airport since November 14, and on a hunger strike for 20 days. Morocco stripped her of her passport and flew her out of the country after she refused to state her nationality as Moroccan, or to acknowledge Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony. Late on December 5, an agreement appeared to have been reached and the 43-year-old boarded a jet to return, but Morocco denied it landing rights minutes before take-off, her lawyer said, and demanded that Haidar make a formal apology to the king of Morocco before she would be allowed to return. Spain’s deputy prime minister, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, said negotiations would continue. Both Amnesty International and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay called for Morocco to allow her to return home. Nobel laureates and other notable figures made public statements supporting Haidar. Spanish foreign minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos offered to arrange a Spanish passport for Haidar, but she turned down his offer, insisting on the return of her original passport. Haidar was becoming too weak to stand, and began slipping in and out of consciousness. On December 11, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also contacted the Moroccan Foreign Minister to request Haidar's re-entry. On December 17, after being unable to swallow liquid for two days, Haidar was admitted to the hospital. She continued to refuse to break her fast. Late that night, Moroccan authorities relented, and Haidar was allowed on a plane back to El-Aaiún. The Spanish foreign ministry attributed the resolution to "a co-ordinated effort between Spain, France and the U.S." Appearing before a crowd in the El-Aaiún airport, Haidar stated, "This is a triumph, a victory for human rights, for international justice and for the cause of Western Sahara ... And it's all thanks to your pressure." Moroccan officials said the government was "committed to respecting human rights in Western Sahara and elsewhere in the country" but Haidar was immediately placed under house arrest by Moroccan police, and journalists were blocked from speaking with her.
- December 6, 2017 – Australia’s Federal Parliament approved legislation legalizing same-sex marriage, a move expected after the public embraced marriage equality in a postal survey in November. Public opinion had shifted since Australian politicians changed the Marriage Act 13 years ago to explicitly prohibit same-sex unions. “Australia has done it. What a day for love, for equality, for respect,” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said. “This belongs to us all. This is Australia — fair, diverse, loving, and filled with respect for every one of us. This has been a great, unifying day in our history.”
- December 6, 2017 – In the UK, a 34-year-old man was found guilty of all 37 counts against him for the horrific kidnappings and rapes of 11 women and children during a two week period in April and May of 2017. He had been on probation after serving time for an armed burglary in 2008 when he was arrested and convicted of another burglary early in 2017, which should have sent him back to prison, but instead he was freed by mistake. Labour’s policing spokeswoman, Louise Haigh, said a “perfect storm” of budget cuts to the police, and to the probation and judicial systems had led to his improper release. The judge in the current trial said he was considering a life sentence, and would also seek an explanation of the perpetrator’s licence conditions at the time of the barbaric offences.
- December 6, 2020 – Canada’s National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women marks the anniversary of the Montreal Massacre that claimed the lives of 14 young women (See entry for 1989). Fourteen women lost their lives that day, 14 promising young women had their futures cut violently short. Thirty years after the Montreal Massacre, in Canada a woman is killed every other day; once a week a woman is murdered by her partner; and at least one in three women will experience some form of sexual violence over the course of their lives.
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December 7 and 8 are covered in PART TWO:
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