The Notorious RBG

 
Last night's news of RBG's death has affected me in so many ways. 

First and foremost, I grieve the death of this amazing woman, and for her family. She was just...amazing. She had a towering intellect and a tenaciousness that defied societal expectations of her time. Her will was without parallel, and she was the one of the first Social Justice Warriors, with all that implied. Someone to aspire to, who worked with compassion and dignity her entire life to make life better for those without her natural gifts and her privilege. 

An amazing legacy of a life well-lived. 

So of course the Republicans will do everything they can to fuck it up, which brings us to my next emotion. Pure, unadulterated, rage. 

Of course, Mitch McConnell decides to announce that tRump's nominee (whoever that will be, but probably not a woman, because Ladybrains are not fit to decide important matters) will in fact get a hearing and a vote in the Senate during the latter part of this election year. Of course. 

Of course, the nominee will almost certainly be a bootlicking conservative of the same ilk as Brett Cavanaugh. Because tRump learned his lesson with Justice Gorsuch, with whom I don't agree politically, but nevertheless is dedicated to the rule of law and is beholden to no one. Not so Cavanaugh, an ass-kissing sycophant and possible rapist. Yeehaw. 

Of course, the newly stacked court will probably overturn cases that benefit minorities and oppressed people, cases that RBG spent her entire life championing, because fuck poor people, the BIPOC communities, women and the LGBTQ community. Fuck them. 

I'm going to quote my buddy Eric here on the impending doom of the next Associate Justice selection, because he's so very eloquent and encapsulates my feelings perfectly:

Of course McConnell is going to allow a vote. The Garland thing was obvious bullshit. Calling him a hypocrite is meaningless--he doesn't care. He has no shame. He has no pride. He has nothing but a cynical, nihilistic desire to win and ethics, morals, and principles have nothing to do with it. He doesn't care.

And for all my loathing of the son of a bitch, the thing of it is that he's the scorpion who stings the frog, the thawed-out snake who bites the sweet old lady: he is what he is and that's all he is. It's the rest of the people who still identify as Republicans who are the problem at this point. Because, unlike McConnell, they think they care; they say they have principles and it's the other side who doesn't, even if these days the other side will (just for instance) shiv somebody like Al Franken and dump him over the side of the boat faster than you can say "decontextualuzed ratfucking" because we actually do mean what we say about things like #metoo however imperfectly we match words with deeds.

Don't fucking tell me you have principles, Republicans. You don't. Trump already proved it but Mitch is gonna double down on it. You don't actually give a runny shit about any principle except scoring and your only ethic is "owning the libs". I don't want to hear any more of your sad garbage, your whataboutism and your both sides and your but her emails and all the rest of it. Take your SCOTUS seat and whatever Federalist Society bootlicker the grifter nominates, and you better hope like hell you're wrong about what we do when we eventually win--because if we decide to start governing like you jagoffs instead of like people who really do care about what we believe, you're right fucked.

So say we all. 

And finally, I am scared-to-fucking-death. I fear for the Republic. I fear for my minority friends and family who will now be marginalized and persecuted even further. I fear for the norms and institutions that make America what it is, things such as civility (yes, I know that ship has sailed), honor (however little of it politicians possess), service to the public good, voting with intellectual rigor (another sailing ship), and concern for our fellow humans. Because the disregard of our laws and norms and lack of morality embodied by tRump and his lickspittle sycophants have a very real possibility of becoming what our country is about. And that's not okay.

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History - RADM Grace Hopper

This is Rear Admiral Grace Hopper. She had a Ph.D in mathematics from Yale University. She joined the Naval Reserves under the WAVE program in 1943 in order to serve during World War II. She served at the Harvard Computation Lab as a civilian contractor after the war was over, and continued her service in Naval Reserves until she was forced into retirement in 1986 at the age of 79.

She had an incredibly accomplished life, earning award after award for her work in Computer Science, developed the first compiler for a computer programming language, conceptualized the idea of machine-independent programming languages, which led to the development of COBOL, helped to develop UNIVAC 1, and released the first compiler languages.

When I joined the Navy in 1984, there were not a ton of female role models. Women weren't even permitted to attend the Naval Academy until 1976, and the first woman to achieve flag rank did so in 1972. Women weren't allowed to serve on combatant vessels until 1993.

But there was always Grace. Excluded by law and inclination from combat service, she took on the field of Computer Science in the most male dominated culture in the country. And she was accomplished. She was worthy of respect. She did not apologize for her gifts or her work, instead making her mark on every aspect of her chosen profession with humor and grace.

I'm a systems engineer. The work of RADM Hopper is the cornerstone of my profession. As she noted, "Life was simple before World War II. After that, we had systems." Just so.


In her own words: 

A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for. Sail out to sea and do new things.

I've received many honors and I'm grateful for them; but I've already received the highest award I'll ever receive, and that has been the privilege and honor of serving very proudly in the United States Navy.

I admire and respect RADM Grace Hopper, who excelled in both my chosen fields - the military and STEM. Courageous, smart, non-conformist. Ill-behaved.

___________
This blog post is inspired by Ada Lovelace Day, an initiative to "share stories of women — whether engineers, scientists, technologists or mathematicians — who have inspired you to become who you are today. The aim is to create new role models for girls and women in these male-dominated fields by raising the profile of other women in STEM."

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History - Ani Zonneveld

Ani Zonneveld is a Malaysian born singer and songwriter. She's a Muslim. She's co-founder for Muslims for Progressive Values (MPV). She leads prayers in her Mosque, a task normally reserved for men. And later this year, she plans on officiating at the Islamic wedding of two lesbians.

The MPV is one of the only Muslim organizations in the world that interprets the Q'uran in a way that  allows homosexuality within the context of Allah's law, and Ms. Zonneveld is working with other like-minded Muslims to spread the message. They also advocate the critical examination of the Q'uran in a more progressive light, and call out sections of the text that may lead to the radicalization of Muslims that may feel disenfranchised. She speaks out often about her thoughts and beliefs, regardless of what the majority of Imams believe about her faith and her interpretation.

Since Ms. Zonneveld lives in America, her actions and advocacy aren't as dangerous as they might be if she lived in a predominantly Muslim society. But it has to start somewhere - with a single person standing up for what they believe is right, and standing up for those who have been marginalized and can't speak for themselves. Thank you for standing up, Ms. Zonneveld.

__________
H/T to my Smart Man.

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History - Nancy Wake

I have a confession to make. I'd never heard of Nancy Wake before her death last week at the age of 98. This embarrasses me, because apparently Ms. Wake was one of the biggest badasses of World War II, male or female.

A native New Zealander, Ms. Wake and her husband were members of the French resistance from 1940 until 1943. She was so effective in her endeavors that she became the Gestapo's "most wanted" person and earned the moniker "The White Mouse" for her ability to elude capture.

In 1943 she fled to Great Britain, where she was recruited into the French Section of the British Special Operations Executive, where she was trained in guerrilla fighting techniques. From April 1944 to the liberation of France, she led 7,000 guerrilla fighters, who collectively fought 22,000 SS soldiers, causing 1,400 casualties, while taking only 100 themselves. She herself was perfectly capable (and willing) to kill German soldiers with her bare hands if it meant advancing her cause. Beautiful and relentless, she was a driving force in the deployment and effective use of the maquis, leading them to victory again and again.

She was qualified to make parachute jumps - and did. "On the night of April 29th, 1944 she was parachuted into the French region of Auvergne. Upon discovering her tangled in a tree, the captain of the local maquis remarked, 'I hope that all the trees in France bear such beautiful fruit this year,' to which she replied, 'Don’t give me that French shit.'" My kind of gal.

Immediately after the war, Wake was awarded the George Medal, the United States Medal of Freedom, the Médaille de la Résistance and thrice the Croix de Guerre. She finished her career with the Intelligence Department of the British Air Ministry.

I've always had enormous respect for the World War II resistance fighters of France. These were some remarkable men and women, brave and daring, and in my mind, their choices and the single-minded execution of their mission helped to make up for the many, many quislings of the time. And I'd always known that many of those fighters were women. But I didn't know that in many cases, they were led by a woman, a woman of amazing gifts and courage, who set the standard for those of us who presumed to take up the profession of arms in their wake.

"I hate wars and violence but if they come then I don't see why we women should just wave our men a proud goodbye and then knit them balaclavas." Just so, Nancy Wake. Fair winds and following seas, my sister.

_______________
Amended 8/15/2011 9:15 a.m. to include the following details about Ms. Wake's amazing husband, Henri Fiocca. I like the way Eric said it, so I'm posting his comment here:

A collateral hat tip from those who still believe in romance and/or are looking for marital inspiration to Ms. Wake's husband, Henri Fiocca: when Ms. Wake helped liberate Paris in '44, she discovered that after her husband was captured, he refused to give up any information about her, preferring to be tortured to death rather than sell her out to the Nazis or Vichy regime. Not that a person is defined by their spouse, but I think it says something about both of them that this was the sort of man she would marry and that she was the sort of woman who would inspire such loyalty. We should all do even half so well in choosing a partner.

Good man. Semper Fidelis, Monsieur Fiocca.

_______________
Wave of the balaclava to my Hot Daughter and my platonic boyfriend Eric, who both sent me links detailing Ms. Wake's life for this feature.

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History - Volume XXIX

Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

It seems like Justice Ginsburg often gets the short end of the stick when it comes to recognition for her achievements in American law. After all, she wasn't the first female Supreme Court Justice. But based on a recent article in Slate by Dahlia Lithwick, I have to say that she's done an incredible amount for gender equality in the country. From the article:

She scored five victories in six Supreme Court appeals, using the 14^th Amendment to slowly and systematically eradicate gender discrimination in one law after another, pushing the courts to scrutinize laws that classify on the basis of gender with a standard higher than the deferential "rational basis" standard.

Indeed she did. And unlike the Palinistas referenced in Lithwick's article, I think it's dreadfully important to recognize the women who have made my life and my work possible. Thanks to the past and current work of this incredible woman, institutional discrimination against my gender has been slowly and surely brought to the light of day and seen for what it is - wrong.

For such a proper and elegant woman, Justice Bader Ginsburg is delightfully and thankfully ill-behaved.

__________
Flutter of the robe to UCF heartthrob Eric of Standing on the Shoulders of Giant Midgets, who brought the Slate article to my attention.

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History, Volume XXVIII

Lena Horne died on Sunday at the age of 92. In honor of her incredible life and legacy, I'm going to honor her as an Ill-Behaved Woman.

With all of the incredible homages and retrospectives currently on the Web honoring Ms. Horne, I'm going to simply embed this medley of her signature classic Stormy Weather from the same movie, and Believe in Yourself, from The Wiz.

A true American heroine. You will be missed, Ms. Horne - and remembered.

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History, Volume XXVII

This is Brooksley Born. She's a Stanford educated attorney who was the first woman to ever be named as the President of the Stanford Law Review, and graduated at the top of her class in 1964.

She's a smart cookie. If she'd spent the rest of her professional life doing nothing more than being a smart cookie in the field of financial law, then she'd still be an ill-behaved woman for her role in breaking down barriers for women in the field of law. But that's not how she spent the rest of her professional life.

From August 26, 1996 to June 1, 1999, Ms. Born was the Chairperson of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal agency which oversees the futures and commodity options markets. This little known agency was charged with the regulation of of financial instruments called "derivatives."

During her tenure, Ms. Born, being an extremely skilled and experienced attorney, began to wonder why an instrument called "over the counter derivatives" were so difficult to track, and why there was no regulation associated with these instruments. She had her staff begin investigating these OTC derivatives, and during the course of their investigation, she came to the conclusion that these instruments, if left without regulation and without requirements for cash reserves, posed a significant threat to the U.S. financial system.

Because the CFTC is a fairly minor agency, Ms. Born did what any good team player would do - she approached the heads of other government agencies to express her concern and to let them know that she intended to pursue regulation, as was her responsibility as the head of the CFTC.

Well. You'd have thought she had suggested a re-institution of slavery, with the roles of the slaves and the masters being reversed. The response to Ms. Born's plan was immediate and vociferous. Alan Greenspan,  Robert Rubin and Larry Summers went after Brooksley Born with a vengeance. Congressional hearings were called. Testimony was given. The entire Clinton Administration and the Congress basically told her she was full of shit.

Her response? She proceeded with plans to do what she thought was best - she announced her intention to regulate OTC derivatives. And the Administration shut her down. Not only did they shut her down, they essentially castrated her entire agency, making it extremely difficult for any Chairperson to enact regulation surrounding OTC derivatives.

What could she do? She resigned.

And two years later, her concerns were proven to be justified - the derivative trader LTCM overextended themselves to the point where they needed federal intervention to save their bacon. In 1998. A clear signal that OTC derivatives were dangerous, and needed some regulation. But that didn't happen. Alan Greenspan wouldn't budge, saying that LTCM's troubles were not indicative of a larger problem, but a one-off incident. He received congratulations for "saving the economy," and Ms. Born continued to do what she did - pro bono work, teaching, working with the American Bar Association.


And then came 2008, and the meltdown of our economy - the exact crisis predicted by Ms. Born. I myself probably could not have resisted slapping the "Three Marketeers" in the head with a shovel, while simultaneously screaming "I TOLD YOU SO!" Thankfully, Ms. Born took the high road, and commented, "I think we will have continuing danger from these markets and that we will have repeats of the financial crisis -- may differ in details but there will be significant financial downturns and disasters attributed to this regulatory gap, over and over, until we learn from experience."

With the Wall Street lobbyists essentially getting their way regardless of consideration for the public good, it seems unlikely that we will "learn from experience."

But Ms. Born received the John F. Kennedy Profiles in Courage Award this year for her incredible fortitude in standing up and speaking the truth, regardless of the consequences. Ms. Born, you are ill-behaved and awesome. Congratulations.


H/T to Frontline, for the source material.

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History, Volume XXVI

This is Dr. Marci Bowers. She's an obstetrical surgeon who practices out of Seattle, Washington, and Trinidad, Colorado. She's one of the leading gender reassignment surgeons in the United States, and underwent the procedure herself eleven years ago.

She's also recently learned to perform a procedure called "clitoralplasty," or "female circumcision reversal." This procedure allows the victims of female genital mutilation to have the violence done to their bodies repaired in both functional and cosmetic ways, relieving them of the pain and scar tissue associated with this horrific practice.

Dr. Bowers waives her fee for these procedures, and the hospital where she practices caps their fees at $1,700.00 because the procedure is so new most insurance companies won't pay. Surgeons who perform this procedure frequently receive death threats from radical Muslims. When asked if she was afraid, Dr. Bowers replied, "I've jumped through enough fires and over enough barbed-wire fences in my life by now. I do not fear for my safety."

Well done, Dr. Bowers. Well done, indeed.

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History, Volume XXV

This is Lynne Cox. A hero of Hot Chick Jeri's, she's a long distance open water swimmer who has taken her love of a sport and translated it into political activism.

She's made a variety of challenging and record breaking swims in her career, including the English Channel, Cook Straight, Catalina Channel and the Straight of Magellan.

Her most famous swim, however, was in 1987, where she was the first person to swim across the Bering Strait with a time of 2 hours and 6 minutes. The water was 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and she attempted the swim as a way to open the US/Soviet border for the first time in 48 years. Her accomplishment helped to ease Cold War tensions as Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev both praised her success.

Additionally, she also completed a 1.6 mile swim in the waters of Antarctica.

Tough lady, and a good example.

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History, Volume XXIV

This is Margaret Sanger. She was born September 14, 1897, and died September 6, 1966. Her legacy? Knowledge of and access to birth control for women.

In the early 20th century, Ms. Sanger was working as a nurse in New York City, and was sickened by the number of women she treated due to self-induced abortions. She became a devoted advocate for birth control in this country, opening the first family planning and birth control clinic in the United States. For over forty years, she founded organizations, clinics and political entities that championed this most profound women's health issue.

From her essay for Edward R. Murrow's This I Believe:

I started my battle some forty years ago. The women and mothers whom I wanted to help, also wanted to help me; they, too, wanted to build beyond the self, in creating healthy children and bringing them up in life to be happy and useful citizens. I believed it was my duty to place motherhood on a higher level than enslavement and accident. I was convinced we must care about people; we must reach out to help them in their despair.

For these beliefs I was denounced, arrested, I was in and out of police courts and higher courts, and indictments hung over my life for several years. But nothing could alter my beliefs. Because I saw these as truths, I stubbornly stuck to my convictions.

And I'm thankful that she did stick to those convictions. Voluntary and safe birth control was the single greatest contributor in women's struggle for equality in this country, and it's because of women like Ms. Sanger that I have the dizzying array of choices and opportunities that are her legacy.

Well done, Ms. Sanger. And thank you.

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History, Volume XXIII

This is Dr. Jerri Nielsen FitzGerald. She died this morning at her home, a victim of breast cancer. She was 57.

While millions of women fight the good fight against breast cancer, and most of them bravely and well, Dr. FitzGerald was special. In 1999, Dr. FitzGerald volunteered to "winter over" at the South Pole as the resident M.D. for the scientists, construction workers and other support people. Shortly after the last flight departed for the winter, she discovered a lump in her breast. With the help of her assistant (a welder), she performed her own biopsy, which was inconclusive.

Doctors monitoring her condition via satellite e-mail decided that she needed chemotherapy drugs and medical equipment. The only way to deliver them was through a rare midwinter airdrop, successfully completed in July by an Air Force jet in total darkness -- in a field lit only by fire.

She underwent her chemotherapy at the hands of her assistants (the aforementioned welder, a carpenter, and who knows who-else), and at first the tumor shrank. But then it started to grow again, and she was evacuated in October of 1999, in one of the earliest recorded flights in a South Pole winter.

She subsequently went into remission, but the cancer came back in 2005, and finally took her life.

My sympathy goes out to her surviving family members. She was a remarkable woman. With the help of a welder, a carpenter, the U.S. Air Force and the New York Air National Guard, she wrestled another 10 years of life from an improbable survival story. Ill-behaved, indeed.

You will be missed.

More History!

It's been a pretty good week for ill-behaved woman and Stephen Jay Gould Award winner Eugenie Scott. She was just included in Scientific American's Scientific American 10: Guiding Science for Humanity list!

Congratulations, Dr. Scott. You're getting to be kind of too cool for school.

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History, Volume XXII

This is Eugenie Scott. She's the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, a non-profit organization dedicated to defending the teaching of evolution in public education.

Dr. Scott has been involved in this issue for many, many years, and in fact, her organization was instrumental in providing support for the landmark Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover District Court win in 2005.

Dr. Scott has just won the inaugural Stephen Jay Gould Prize, awarded annually by the Society for the Study of Evolution "to recognize individuals whose sustained and exemplary efforts have advanced public understanding of evolutionary science and its importance in biology, education, and everyday life in the spirit of Stephen Jay Gould."

I'm a great admirer of Dr. Scott, and find her arguments compelling. She's implacable when it comes to providing accurate, scientifically solid information, yet her personal style is such that she's not as confrontational as others with the same agenda.

Her work is controversial, and she's received death threats for her work in keeping religion our of public schools. That hasn't stopped her from plowing forward, though.

She's making history, and she's ill-behaved. Congratulations, Dr. Scott, on your award. Well-deserved.

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History, Volume XXI

This is Dorothy Dandridge. Born November 9, 1922, she was a singer and actress in the '30's, 40's, 50's and 60's, until her untimely death in 1965 at the age of 42.

Ms. Dandridge was a trailblazer. She was involved in the early soundies in the '40's, and her lovely face and exceptional voice distinguished her as a sought after nightclub act and actress.

Her most famous role was in the musical movie Carmen Jones, where she played the title role. Her performance earned her an Academy Award nomination, only the third African-American in history to receive a nomination.

Ms. Dandridge's legacy in the entertainment industry is now well established, thanks in part to those she inspired, including Cicely Tyson, Jada Pinkett Smith, Halle Barry, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett and others.

Truly a remarkable talent, and a trailblazer worthy of the label "ill-behaved."

Here's a sample of her 1940's work, a "soundy" of the song Cow Cow Boogie.

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History, Volume XX

This is Emily Warren Roebling. She was born in Cold Spring, NY in 1843. She married a civil engineer named Washington Roebling in 1865. Washington was the son of John A. Roebling, who designed the Brooklyn Bridge. While John was beginning work on the bridge, the couple went to Europe to study caissons.

Their lives changed when John Roebling died of tetanus upon their return from Europe. Washington took over the project, but developed a severe case of the bends early in construction.

And this is why Emily Warren Roebling is so ill-behaved. Instead of allowing her family's life's work to be completed by someone else, she essentially became the first female field engineer in American history. While her husband was bed-ridden, she became intimately familiar with concepts such as material strength, stress analysis, cable construction and calculating catenary curves. She dealt with the politicians, the other engineers, the construction staff. She even represented her family's interests in a meeting of the American Society of Civil Engineers, where her husband was a member and she was not. For fourteen years she wielded the baton for her ill husband.

When the bridge was completed in 1883, she was recognized by Abram Stevens Hewitt, who said the bridge was "..an everlasting monument to the sacrificing devotion of a woman and of her capacity for that higher education from which she has been too long disbarred."

After the completion of the bridge, she and her family moved to New Jersey. She received a Law Degree from New York University, and passed away in 1903.

Truly a remarkable woman, with a formidable mind and will. Thank you, Emily Warren Roebling, for doing more than was expected, and more than anyone thought you capable. Ill-behaved, indeed.

A Nice Surprise

Today's e:mail, instead of bringing more religious ranting from the Christian Taliban, brought a nice note from Rachel Andres, the subject of yesterday's Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History feature.

Rachel writes:

Hi! Thanks so much for writing this up about the Jewish World Watch’s Solar Cooker Project! I love your site and I appreciate you spreading the word about the project.

Let me know if you want any more information.

Take care!

Rachel

Aside from the fact that she's a class act for taking the time to thank me for my post, I find it endearing that she's more concerned about her project than she is about personal recognition.

Which is why she's so very ill-behaved.

Thanks, Rachel, and keep up the good work.

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History, Volume XIX

This is Rachel Andres. She's the director of Jewish World Watch's Solar Cooker Project.

The Solar Cooker Project is a charitable organization that brings simple solar cookers to the Darfur refugees.

This is important because in this culture, it is the responsibility of the woman to gather firewood for cooking. When the women leave the camp to complete this chore, they are frequently raped, regardless of their age. But if the men take up the chore, they are killed. The families are then left with an impossible choice - a traumatized (but living) female family member, or a dead male one.

So to help alleviate the risk, the Solar Cooker Project provides cardboard and tin foil solar cookers that will allow families to cook their daily meals without the use of firewood. The women are given the cookers, and trained on how to use them. They can also earn money by assembling the cookers, or by weaving baskets to hold the cooked food.

So how big a difference have these low tech Solar Cookers made? A huge difference. Once a camp has distributed the cookers, trips outside the camp to gather firewood decrease by 86%. That's a lot of risk abatement.

Ms. Andres was recently honored for her contributions by winning The 2008 Charles Bronfman Prize, a Jewish humanitarian award.

Yep. A Jewish woman, winning a Jewish humanitarian award for helping Muslim women to improve their lives and their safety. I'm down with that.

Congratulations, Ms. Andres, and keep fighting the good fight.


H/T to my Hot Mom.

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History, Volume XIX

Meet Elizabeth Wanamaker Peratrovich. Yesterday, Alaskans celebrated her day, February 16th, in honor of her civil rights work.

A native Alaskan, her Tlingit name was Kaaxgal.aat, and she was of the Lukaax.adi clan of the Raven moiety.

An educated woman, she attended the Western College of Education in Bellingham, Washington, where she met and married her husband, Roy Peratrovich in December, 1931.

The moved to Juneau in 1941 when Roy became Grand President of the Alaska Native Brotherhood, and at the at the same time Elizabeth served as Grand President of the allied Alaska Native Sisterhood. Once there, they began to complain and lobby for the removal of signs in business establishments revealing blatant discrimination against Alaska's Native people such as "No Natives Allowed." She and her husband also experienced housing discrimination during their move.

After years of working with Governor Ernest Gruening and Congressional Representative Anthony J. Dimond, the bill was finally passed in 1945, after Elizabeth's testimony provided the key impetus for the legislators.

In 1988, February 16th became "Elizabeth Peratrovich Day," in honor of the anniversary of the signing of the Anti-Discrimination Act in 1945. This law was the first equal rights law in the United States, and Mrs. Peratrovich was the driving force behind it.

Mrs. Peratrovich died in 1958 of cancer.

One wonders what Mrs. Peratrovich would have thought about the election of President Obama. Based on her testimony before the legislature, I can only believe she would be very, very pleased.

Thank you for your work, Mrs. Peratrovich, on behalf not only of your brothers and sisters, but of all oppressed people. Ill-behaved, indeed.


H/T to Alaskan Hot Chick Tania.

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History, Volume XIX

Meet Dr. Temple Grandin. She's an an animal scientist and an Associate Professor at Colorado State University.

From her website:

Dr. Grandin is a designer of livestock handling facilities and a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. Facilities she has designed are located in the United States, Canada, Europe, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries. In North America, almost half of the cattle are handled in a center track restrainer system that she designed for meat plants. Curved chute and race systems she has designed for cattle are used worldwide and her writings on the flight zone and other principles of grazing animal behavior have helped many people to reduce stress on their animals during handling.

She's also autistic.

She's written numerous books about her experiences, and how her autism has helped her to become the top person in her field. She feels autism has helped her understand animals in a way that "normal" people simply can't, and that her deep understanding stems from similarities between autistic behavior and animal behavior.

I've been reading about Dr. Grandin's life and accomplishments for years, and she was interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air yesterday. She was promoting her new book, Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals.

I think one of the things I admire about Dr. Grandin is her immense compassion for the animals that share our world. She's a realist - she knows people will continue to eat animals, so she does work that enhances the quality of life for food animals.

Well done, Dr. Grandin. Thank you for setting an example in moral behavior for the rest of us, and talking about your condition in a helpful, enlightening way. You are truly making history.

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History, Volume XVIII

This is Billie Jean King. She was an extraordinarily gifted tennis player in the 1970's, and is the epitome of an ill-behaved woman.

Consider these facts:

- First female athlete in any sport to earn more than $100,000 in a single season in 1971.

- First woman to coach a co-ed team in professional sports - the Philadelphia Freedoms in 1974. And I love the song.

- Only woman to win U.S. singles title on grass, clay, carpet and hard surface courts.

- First female professional athlete to come out as gay in 1981.

- First woman commissioner in professional sports history for World TeamTennis in 1984.

- One of six inaugural inductees into the Court of Fame at the USTA National Tennis Center in 2003.

- First woman to have a major sports venue named in her honor in the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in 2006.

All of these accomplishments are noteworthy, but my own memory of Billie Jean revolves around the 1973 "Battle of the Sexes" against Bobby Riggs. I was 8 years old, and I remember watching this event on television. I remember cheering with my Hot Sister when she won, and I remember my dad, a self-identified Male Chauvinist Pig, commenting, "Of course she won. She's young and strong - at the top of her game. He's 55 years old, ancient for a professional athlete. He was outgunned all the way." Her accomplishment became my accomplishment, and the accomplishment of all my little girlfriends, and I remember how very proud we were.

As an adult, I think I admire her most for her work to ensure women athletes receive comparable prize money with men. This was a clear case of equal pay for equal work, and she put her money where her mouth was on this topic, refusing to play in the U.S. Open unless the prize money was equal. She also fiercely supported Title IX, and I now realize one of the reasons she chose to participate in the game against Riggs. After the match, she told Newsweek "I just had to play . . . Title IX had just passed, and I . . . wanted to change the hearts and minds of people to match the legislation."

She has spent her entire life fighting for gender equality, not only in tennis and sports, but in all walks of life.

You did your job well, Ms. King, and your tenacity and courage in the face of incredible misogyny is an inspiration. You're an ill-behaved woman all the way, and I'm grateful for your leadership and example.