VETERAN FEMINISTS of AMERICA
is proud to present
|
|
GRANDMOTHERS
&
MOTHERS
&
DAUGHTERS
&
GRANDDAUGHTERS
|
|
|
Article
Submissions: Contact Jan Cleary, Website Manager: jancleary@aol.com for information
|
| |
|
Suzanne
Benton and daughter Janet Benton
 Suzanne Benton, an
artist and an activist since early days of the movement is also a founder of VFA. Suzanne, who always used her
art in feminist demonstrations, is a transculturalist and is often traveling to some remote part of the world.
In 1996 VFA was honoring activists on NOW's 30th anniversary , but, Suzanne was in Bosnia. Janet , her daughter
accepted her medal of honor. No one present that evening will forget Janet's acceptance speech.. Many of us were
raising children at the time and could identify. Here are excerpts. . Read them and cry,. And laugh!
It wasn't always easy having a mother dedicated to feminism and to becoming herself. I came home from third grade
to find that my full-size baby carriage and baby doll who wet her pants, along with Barbie, her lovely accessories,
and most of my stuffed animals, had been donated to a day-care center. While I got an appendectomy a few months
earlier, Mom was marching through New York City streets with a procession of women wearing her metal masks, proclaiming
the second coming of the great goddess. And after my parents divorced, I often came home to an empty house. It
was a strange irony, the way that a joyous liberation and a freeing divorce sucked the joy from my life.
But I also received a treasure, one that I have come to understand as rare since hearing many people tell me what
happened to the dreams, to the capacities of their mothers, and that is that my mother is a creative, strong, courageous
woman who will never give up. The pride she has brought me, and the self-respect and assertiveness she has worked
so hard to teach me, have proved more nutritive than hundreds of perfectly cooked meals.
So thank you for acknowledging Suzanne's thirty years of work on behalf of women. It means a lot to both of us.
For more about Suzanne ..see our Art Section. http://www.vfa.us/Artists.htm
To reach Janet.. now a mother herself.. bentoneditorial@msn.com
|
| |
Muriel Fox and Lisa Aronson Fontes
 Muriel Fox's daughter, Lisa Aronson Fontes, teaches psychology as core faculty with The Union
Institute. She s published two books on working with people from diverse cultures: "Sexual Abuse in Nine North
American Cultures and Child Abuse and Culture: Working with Diverse Families. Her third book, teaching professionals
how to interview people from different cultures, will be published by The Guilford Press late this year. Lisa is
an activist feminist, as is Muriel's son Eric Aronson.
E-Mail Muriel and Lisa at: mfox66@verizon.net
|
| |
|
Merle Hoffman and Sasharina Kate Hoffman
 VFA member Merle Hoffman is President/CEO of Choices Women's Medical Center
in Long Island City, NY.
For more than 30 years, Merle Hoffman has revolutionized women's health care and women's lives. She founded one
of the nation's first abortion clinics in 1971, making Choices Women's Medical Center one of the largest feminist
health facilities in the nation, adding Choices Mental Health Center in 1995. Hoffman founded "On the Issues"
magazine, a radical feminist quarterly. She is an internationally recognized leader in the struggle for social
justice and women's rights.
Merle's reflection
- daughter Sasharina
I always embraced
the mythic and heroic to commit myself to a movement and a vision of women's freedom. Motherhood had never been
part of my lexicon of self. But now I wanted a daughter- and ultimately it was about love--and about my choice
to actively seek it in the act of loving an unwanted child.
Sasharina Kate has been with me for almost three years now--- she is a continual challenge, a joyful burden,a relentless
eruption of spontaneity, a living energy force that engages every aspect of my being-- a catalyst for bringing
me deeper into life and closer to mortality-- she is my greatest love-- she is my daughter.
mhoti@aol.com
merlehoffman.com
|
| |
|
Lee Kefauver and Kari Lavalli
 When I began working in the
Women's Movement, my bright and charming daughter Kari was eight years old. She fought her way through the old
traditions in the public schools of Dearborn, Michigan, went on to earn a bachelor's degree from Wells College
in New York and then her Ph.D. in marine biology from Boston University.
She went
through a dispiriting time at Boston University, fighting the old-boys sexist discrimination, but now has a great
job as an Assistant Professor at BU where they 've just put her on tenure track. She loves her work there and finds
it most satisfying. BU is alma mater to both of us!
In the spring issue of Bostonia, their alumnae magazine, both of us were mentioned as being listed in Feminists Who
Changed America.
(Lee Kefauver served as Michigan state coordinator of NOW, as
president and lobbyist of Women's Equity Action League (WEAL),
Michigan Division. She currently is a member of the Massachusetts and National Women's Political Caucus, Emily's
List, and the Veteran Feminists of America.)
E-mail Lee at: klavalli@yahoo.com, or klavalli@bu.edu
|
| |
|
VFA
Member Helen Redman and Granddaughter Shira Frank
Helen Redman, MFA, is a widely exhibited figurative painter,
teacher, feminist commentator and grandmother who shares her art in the context of life issues. She has taught
at the University of Colorado and the University of Iowa and has lectured and exhibited her art across the United
States. She has been an active force for gaining support and recognition for women in the arts, co-founding in
the 1970s Front Range Women in the Visual Arts in Boulder, Colorado, in the 1970s, and serving as the first president
of the San Diego Women's Caucus for the Arts in the 1990s.
 I'd like to share this piece I wrote in 2001 when my 16 year old granddaughter played in
the Vagina Monologues. It was printed by the Millenium Art Gallery webzine and is now in their online archives
and hopefully accessible to you through the link below. I wanted to share it with you--it's much longer than you
want but I think its a very powerful piece on generations
My Granddaughter's Performance
I have been awed by the sacredness of seeing a granddaughter born...just as it's being described in the final scene
of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues. It lives in my memory more vividly than the birth of my own three children.
Now, 16 years later, I'm seeing Shira (Hebrew for "song") perform in the play at the Eureka Theatre in
Northern California. She's the youngest member of the cast and is playing the most difficult role. In this production
of Eve Ensler's outrageous series of monologues, women speak of what their vaginas have experienced. An ensemble
cast is on stage at all times and tonight eight women are dividing the poignant and ribald tales.
As Shira's turn approaches, I can see her darkening into the mood of her part. At center stage for "My Vagina
Was My Village," she uses the wrap of a large transparent scarf to enter the tortured body of a victim of
mass rape, war rape, village rape. As the scarf encircles her face, her features become not Shira but a face so
ancient in its tragic tale, it's from a Greek chorus. Stagelight makes her face an orb of moon and slowly she accents
her part as a stunned silence falls on the audience.
My 16 year old grandaughter is acting this part. May she never in her life experience anything even remotely resembling
it.
Shira Frank is currently working as the development director of the Jewish Primary Day School of Washington, DC.
It's her first full time job after graduating with honors from Smith college, class of 2006. She is committed to
economic empowerment for women and girls and social change philanthropy.
Thanks from a very proud grandmother and isn't it about time we crow about having feminist daughters, sons and
granddaughters.
Visit Helen's "Birthing the Crone" website: http://www.birthingthecrone.com
Read her entire 2001 Article on Shira's Performance In the The Vagina Monologues
http://www.millenniumartgallery.com/medium/index.html at Cream:The Creative Medium Listings
1. scroll down to historical mag click columnist index
2. scroll down alphabetically to Helen Redman
Redcrone@aol.com
|
| |
|
Jane Roberts and daughter Annie at March for Women's Lives 2004
CONTACT: JulianRob@aol.com
 A Thrill of a Lifetime
On March 25, 2004, I was at the March for Women's Lives. Not just among the crowds but on the stage carrying the
American flag. There were at least 30 other women from foreign countries onstage with their flags; they wanted
the world to know what Bush Administration policies (such as the Global Gag Rule and the refusal to release $34
million to the United Nations Population Fund) were doing to the women in their countries. My 28-year-old daughter
Annie was with me and we were marching for the women of the world. What a great show of enthusiasm!
I had taken my whole family, husband, daughter and son to the March for Women's Lives in Los Angeles in 1986. Annie
was only 10 then; she is 30 now. She's a great joy to me and, taking after her father a bit, has a Ph.D. in chemistry.
When I was in college only the very exceptional woman pursued advanced degrees in the sciences. How times have
changed!
I am cofounder with Lois Abraham of 34 Million Friends of the UN Population Fund. Since 2002 on our wonderful web
site (www.34millionfriends.org), Lois and I have been asking 34 million Americans to take a stand by contributing
at least one dollar.
By 2006 the UN Foundation was supporting 34 Million Friends through their Better World Campaign. Early in the day
on March 25, 2004 I had met a feeble but lovely Betty Friedan at the Communications Consortium Media Center headed
by the inimitable Kathy Bonk.
The week before, Molly Ivins had written a column in which she said this March was not only about Americans' access
to abortion, but also the lives of women around the world. And she mentioned 34 Million Friends. In one column
she called me the "embodiment of all the Miss Witherspoons of our lives." In fact, she was the first
nationally syndicated columnist to write about our grassroots effort, calling it a "splendid symbolic protest."
Oh do we miss her!
Another highlight that day was when my daughter and I attended the NARAL picnic. I'll never forget Kate Michelman's
largess of spirit when she "stopped" the picnic and had me recite my 34 Million Friends poem (it's on
our web site). So in a sense I have come full circle, with my daughter and I participating in the first March for
Women's Lives in 1986 and then the one in 2004.
Forty million abortions take place in the world every year, about 25 million of them dangerous, unsafe, illegal
and accounting for at least a quarter of maternal deaths. According to the UN Population Fund, $34 million would
buy enough contraceptive commodities and train enough health-care workers to prevent 800,000 abortions worldwide.
As of September 23, 2007, our organization has contributed $3.6 million to the support of both programs.
Yes, but since 2002 the US has withheld a grand total of $195 million! So spread the word! 34 Million Friends is
sending a message from the American people to the world that WE THE PEOPLE care. I am proud to be a member of Veteran
Feminists of America.
Do what you can - Support www.34millionfriends.org
|
| |
|
Barbara
Seaman, her mother-in-law, her daughters and her granddaughters.
Her Spirit Lives On
February 27, 2008
ALL IN A FABULOUS
FAMILY
Barbara, was a journalist
and author, a founder of the women's health movement, continues to persistently challenge the medical establishment
and pharmaceutical companies by
photo: Aunt Sally Miller, who
had to drop out after graduation from high school to help support her brother in college.
 |
exposing their drive for profit at the expense of women.
When women and men marched down New York's Fifth Avenue on August 26, 1980 to mark the tenth anniversary of Women's
Strike for Equality and the sixtieth anniversary of women's right to vote, leading the parade were Sylvia Seaman,
her daughter-in-law Barbara Seaman, and Barbara's daughter Elana Seaman, representing three generations of feminist
activism.
Born in 1900, Sylvia Seaman first marched for suffrage in 1915. When in 1920 the Nineteenth Amendment gave women
the right to vote, she reveled in the celebrations. She remained active in the feminist movement as one of five
leaders participating in the 1970 march commemorating the 50th anniversary of women's
from left: Idalia, Barbara, Sophia,
Carolyn Maloney
|
|
suffrage, and died of breast cancer in 1995.
In 1973 Barbara was cited by the Library of Congress as the author who raised sexism in health care as a worldwide
issue, and in April 2000 the U.S. Postal Service named her an honoree of the 1970s Women's Rights Movement stamp.
Elana Seaman, just 20 in 1980, was already active in the women's movement by the time she marched down Fifth Avenue
with her mother and grandmother. A junior at Bard College, she planned to work in a women's health center after
her graduation. While her grandmother told the Times that women were still "left high and dry in 1980s"
on issues such as the Equal Rights Amendment, Elana was more optimistic, noting that "there's always been
progress and retrogression" in the several American women's movements.
from left: Shira, Elana, Grandmother
Sylvia
 |
"Between the ages of six and fifteen I spent a lot of time with my mother," says Barbara's younger daughter,
Shira Seaman, "When she cofounded the National Women's Health Network, Elana and I went with her to Washington
to demonstrate at the FDA." Shira's younger daughter Idalia is an outspoken feminist; her older daughter Sophia,
now 16, writes long school papers on the history of British militant suffragists, the factory girls in Lowell,
Massachusetts and other feminist topics.
At 72 Barbara had two books coming out in 2008: The No-Nonsense Guide to Menopause and The Body Politic, Dispatches from the Women's Health Revolution.
Indeed, the Seaman family's feminist credentials shine bright in the long history of women's activism in America.
Barbara also appears in the VFA Website FEATURES and BOOKS Sections. Yes, her spirit continues.
|
| |
|
Ginny
Watkins
Contact: ginnylsw@q.com
Ginny Watkins, secretary of VFA, founded the NOW Chapter in Des Moines, successfully lobbied the first Child Care
Sliding Fee legislation in Minnesota and served six years on the NOW National Board.
(left to right) daughter Rhonda
Watkins; Ginny; granddaughter Kelly Watkins; daughter-in-law
Kathryn Hammond
|
|
Ginny is semi-retired, and when not traveling, working, or helping VFA, has taken care of daughter Rhonda's sons
part-time while Rhonda and her husband work. She first thought of grandparents taking care of grandchildren when
she read "The Feminine Mystique." "I was quite taken with Betty Friedan's vision of mothers being
able to have good careers, but thought about who would take care of the children. This was before childcare as
we know it was well developed. Of course for many reasons not all grandparents are able to do this, but if possible
it can provide excellent support to a busy working family."
Her daughter, Rhonda Watkins, a freelance prop stylist and the mother of two young sons, is particularly concerned
about sexism in children's TV and in the marketing of toys. Granddaughter Kelly Watkins is a journalism major at
the University of Montana. As a child she would point out instances of sexism to Ginny. Daughter-in-law Kathryn
Hammond is Vice President of Priority Publications, a national custom publishing firm (www.prioritypub.com) whose mission is financial and healthcare literacy. Kathryn supports domestic
violence victims as a volunteer through The Women's Foundation and Cornerstone.
|
| |
|
GRACE
RIPA WELCH
grace@gracewelch.com
back row from left: Kimberly, Lisa,
Grace, Jean Tobin
front: Leanna Marie
|
|
Grace Ripa. Welch (page 487, Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-1975)
is shown with all the females in her family:
Granddaughter, Kimberly Grace Hair, attends SUNY New Paltz as a freshman, pursuing a career in Speech Pathology;
daughter, Lisa, teacher's assistant at Bayport Schools; Grace, Co-President Mid-Suffolk (Long Island) NOW chapter;
daughter, Jean Tobin. Jean has a Ph.D. in World Peace from Maharishi European Research University and is a teacher
of Transcendental Meditation (tm.org).
From 2004-2006 Jean was the Director of The Raj, Fairfield, Iowa, (theraj.com) a world renowned in-residence
Maharishi Ayurveda Health Center. She is currently involved in establishing Consciousness Based Schools for Girls
(cbeprograms.org and alltm.org/education) in the U.S. and around the world, and is participating in the Invincible
America Assembly (invincibleamerica.org) demonstrating the benefits which can be afforded any country when the TM-Sidhi
Program is practiced in a group.
Front and center is granddaughter, Leanna Marie Hair, 6 years old, happy to be in first grade!
Grace also has a son, Michael Ripa Welch, who is a sales executive with a Brooklyn firm.
|
| |