25 years at radio station KRCL featuring women of history, plus music by women, Babs De Lay captivated the October audience with her wry humor and insight of how women have impacted humankind.

Introduction

De Lay began with, "How many women are in the world today? 3.1 billion women, according to 2003 statistics. How many generations of humans have we had on earth? Let's say just ten although there have been more. That would make 60 billion people with 30 billion women with history."

As an illustration of irony about gender inequity, De Lay cited a Greek play by Aristophanes named "Lysistrata" where the women of Athens, led by Lysistrata, devised a plan to stop the Peloponnesian War which was in its twenty-first year. Every wife and mistress was to refuse all sexual favors until the men came to terms of peace. As a precautionary measure, they also seized the Acropolis where the State treasure is kept. The result was the war ended.

The irony, De Lay asked? The play was written by a man, and performed only by men for both genders.

Centuries later we still have war, but women are not publicly withholding sex. Instead, De Lay said emphatically, they are TOLD publicly to not have sex or to hide their sex or be killed for it--in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Thailand, China, and many other countries. Women are dying today because...they are women.

Stories of Great Women

1. The Nobel Peace prize was inspired by a woman. Alfred Nobel, for whom the prize was named, had felt guilty about inventing the blasting cap for dynamite in the 1800's. Having been interested in peace for years, Nobel's friend, Baroness Bertha Von Suttner, drew his attention to the international movement against war.
   
   As a result, he wrote to Bertha in January 1893 that he planned to establish a prize to be awarded to "him or her who would have brought about the greatest step toward advancing the pacification of Europe." In 1905, she was the first woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. To date, only nine women have won the prize.
2. Louise Hay was a metaphysical healer who began her work decades ago when the AIDS plague hit the United States. Her work involved mind over matter.
3. Mother Teresa "saw Christ in every human being" and whose life's work was respect for the individual and her worth and dignity, for example, the abandoned lepers.
4. A vital, critical organization, the American Red Cross, was founded by another well-known woman, Clara Barton.
5. Everyone has heard of Amelia Earhart, a pioneer in a male world yet De Lay asked who has heard of Women Airforce Service Pilots, another WASP acronym? Because during World War II so few men were available, women were needed to fly new planes from manufacturing factories to military bases. Thus, 25,000 women applied, 1,830 were accepted, and of those, 1,074 earned their Silver Wings.
   
   In two years, these women flew 60 million miles in every type aircraft at the Army Air Force arsenal and for every type mission a male pilot flew except combat. In addition, they paid their own way for training and for their return trip. If a woman was killed in her plane, the government did not pay for her body to be shipped back or for her funeral; 38 women died while in service.
   
   These WASPS were deactivated in 1944 without any government benefits, their records were sealed as secret or classified for 30 years, and they were denied "Veteran Status" for 35 years. They could only be buried at Arlington National Cemetery as "Enlisted" and not with "Officers Honors".
   
   A personal friend of De Lay's, Bill Nicholson, whose mother Alberta Hunt Nicholson was a Utah WASP, is part of Hill Air Force Military Museum's memorabilia. Bill's mother is an exemplary local example of courage and sacrifice.
6. A contemporary woman of courage, Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in April of 2004 in Iraq, is actively protesting against the Iraqi War.
7. Ofra Haza, one of De Lay's favorite singers, represented Israel well during peace and war with her fusion of Yemenite folk and '80s beat. The ninth child of poor immigrants, a star who made it from the back streets of South Tel Aviv to Hollywood, she died at 41 of AIDS. She could have been a poster girl for women with AIDS, but she refused to tell the world.
   In 2004, forty million people in the world were living with HIV or AIDS, and three million died from AIDS in 2004. Women are the largest growing community of people infected with HIV in the world. Why, asked De Lay? Because women are raped.
8. Tori Amos was one of the first celebrities to go public about her rape when she released Me & A Gun on her Little Earthquakes CD in 1991. Amos in 1994 reached out to her label for help, Atlantic Records, who provided seed money for creation of the nation's only toll-free hotline for survivors of sexual assault. Five years and more than 280,000 crisis calls later, Amos continues in this work.

Women in Politics

De Lay continued with asking how many countries are in the world, and how many of those countries have women leaders. Almanacs estimate between 189 to 194 countries. Of those, only nine countries have women heads of state, not counting figureheads like Queen Elizabeth. The countries are Sri Lanka, Ireland, Latvia, New Zealand, Finland, the Phillipines, Bangladesh, Mozambique, and Sao Tome/Principe.

De Lay then asked a provocative question: Do you think it might make a difference if there were more women running the world, since almost half of all humans are women?

Fight for the Right to Vote

In 1897 Millicent Fawcett founded the National Union of Women's Suffrage in England. Thinking violence would cause men to think women could not be trusted to vote, her plan was to exercise patience and logical arguments. One argument was that since women were on school boards, paid taxes, and managed large estates that employed gardeners, workmen and laborers who could vote, it was unjust they could not vote regardless of their wealth.

However, Fawcett's method was making little progress. Most men in Parliament believed women simply could not understand how Parliament worked and therefore should not take part in the electoral process.

This left many women angry which included Emily Pankhurst and daughters Christabel and Sylvia who formed the Women's Social and Political Union in 1903. This Union, known as the Suffragettes, used peaceful means at first. It was only in 1905 that they created a stir when Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney interrupted a political meeting in Manchester to ask two Liberal politicians, Winston Churchill and Sir Edward Grey, if they believed women should have the right to vote. Neither man replied. The two women then raised a banner that said, "Votes for Women" and demanded answers to their questions.

Pankhurst and Kenney were thrown out of the meeting and arrested for obstruction and assault on a police officer. They refused to pay the fine, preferring prison to emphasize the injustice of the system. Thereafter women interrupted many meetings, and were insulted and violently thrown out.

Suffragettes were glad to go to prison and on hunger strikes. The government was concerned they might die in prison, thus giving martyrs to the movement. So prison governors were ordered to force-feed Suffragettes but this caused a public outcry as forced feeding was used for lunatics, not educated women.

As a result, the government of Asquith responded with the Cat and Mouse Act where authorities would allow the Suffragettes to go on a hunger strike and not force-feed them until they were very weak--and then were released. Dying out of prison would not embarrass the government.

But they did not die. After regaining strength, they were re-arrested for trivial reasons and the process was repeated. This, from the government's point of view, was an effective weapon against the Suffragettes.

The Suffragettes became more extreme. Their most famous feat was at the June 1913 derby when Emily Wilding Davis threw herself under the King's horse. Killed, she became the first Suffragettes' martyr. For a dramatic look at these courageous women, De Lay recommended HBO film "Iron Jawed Angels." "It should make you want to go out and vote in every single election!" she said.

De Lay concluded with what she has learned from women in history.

1. Women are feelers. They sense what is wrong and fix it if they can.
2. Women are motivated by compassion...for their families, friends, and communities.
3. Through compassion, women are more tolerant than men. To affect change they are often patient and peaceful in their actions.

--Sarah Smith