WS TIMES JULY 2015.pages - Womonscape Center, Inc.

WOMONSCAPE CENTER, INC.
JULY 2015
WOMONSCAPE TIMES
~A monthly publication by the Womonscape Center Inc.~
JULY 2015
HIGHLIGHTS AT THE
CENTER:
July 7, 14, 21, 28: No-Rules Book Group, 6:00-7:30 pm
July 5, 19: Womonstrong Film/Seminar Series: Summer Sunday Matinees: 12:30 pm-closing
July 2, 9, 16, 23, 30: PS Thursdays: Join us for a pancake supper, 6:00-8:00 pm
July 12: Games Sunday: Games of all kinds, with an emphasis on fun: 12:30 pm-closing
July 26: Variety Sunday: Moving to Music, 11:30 am-2:30 pm
WOMONSCAPE. SERVING WOMEN. ENRICHING LIVES.
GAMES SUNDAY: JULY 12
It’s been awhile since we’ve spent time playing games at Womonscape, so we’re pleased to
announce a special afternoon devoted to games on Sunday, July 12, beginning at 12:30 p.m.
All are welcome. The emphasis will be on fun, friendly competition, and laughter. Bring a
favorite game or simply bring yourself and enjoy games from the Womonscape Center’s
collection.
Womonscape
Times
Editor in Chief
Ricki Grunberg
Assistant Editor
Jane Leussler
Contributers
Our readers
Published monthly by
Womonscape Center, Inc.
501(c)(3)
Baraboo, WI
© 2015
ARE YOU A PIERCE’S
SHOPPER?
If you shop at Pierce’s Grocery
Store in Baraboo, Portage,
Madison or Muscoda, you can
help support Womonscape at
the same time! Simply go to
the Customer Service desk and
either ask for a rewards card
or ‘attach’ your rewards card
to the Womonscape Center,
#1706. Then each time you
shop, show your rewards card.
You will receive points toward
future store savings and the
Womonscape Center will
receive points toward a
financial contribution from
Pierce’s.
READERS’ COLLAGE
Based on books from the
Womonscape No-Rules Book
Group, the Womonscape Staff
will be starting a book
Readers’ Collage. We’ll be
taking photos of books (and
other reading material)
brought in for the group. If
you want to bring in a book
that you’ve already read in
order to have it photographed,
that’s fine. Otherwise, we’ll
start taking pictures of the
books starting this month. The
photos will be printed and
assembled for a colorful and
informative wall collage.
•612 Oak Street, Baraboo WI 53913 • twitter: @womonscape • email: womonscapecenter@fastmail.net
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WOMONSCAPE CENTER, INC.
THANK YOU TO ALL WHO
HELPED NAME OUR PUP!!
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JULY 2015
BUTTERSCOTCH!
PANCAKES GALORE
Our pancake suppers have been yummy and wonderful, to say the least.
We’ve used a myriad of toppings and ingredients, from butter and maple
syrup to raspberries, applesauce and bananas.
VARIETY SUNDAY
~MOVING TO MUSIC
JULY 26
11:30AM-2:30PM
Come Sunday July 26 for games and activities set to music.
No experience necessary. Light-hearted and enjoyable.
WOMONSTRONG FILM/SEMINAR SERIES: SUMMER SUNDAY MATINEES
Join us for feature films with strong women characters or for dramatic or documentary
portrayals of the lives of women. Enjoy a bowl of soup and a hearty discussion.
Sunday, July 5:
An Affair to Remember
This Hollywood classic stars
Deborah Kerr as a woman who
must decide how to handle falling
in love without losing her
independence. 1957, 119 minutes,
unrated.
Sunday, July 19
Iris
Iris Murdoch, the brilliant
writer who, in her later
years, struggled with
Alzheimer’s disease, is the
focus of this biographical
film. Starring Kate
Winslet as the young Iris
and Judi Dench as the
older Iris. 2001, 91
minutes, R.
postcard from Willy St. Coop/Madison
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CLOSED
CLOSED
CLOSED
CLOSED
No Rules
Book Group,
6:00-7:30pm
No Rules
Book Group,
6:00-7:30pm
No Rules
Book Group,
6:00-7:30pm
No Rules
Book Group,
6:00-7:30pm
Twitter: @womonscape
Phone: 608-448-4113
• Open for select special events and by appointment •
-612 Oak Street, Baraboo 53913-Website: www.womonscapecenter.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/womonscapecenter
Moving to Music
11:30-2:30pm
Variety Sunday
Womonstrong
Film/Seminar
Series
Iris
12:30pm
12:30-2:30pm
Games Sunday
Womonstrong
Film/Seminar
Series
An Affair To
Remember
12:30pm
CLOSED
CLOSED
CLOSED
CLOSED
CLOSED
Tuesday OPEN
5:30pm-8:30pm
Thursday OPEN
2:00pm-8:30pm
Wednesday OPEN
10:00am-3:00pm
CLOSED
CLOSED
CLOSED
CLOSED
Sunday OPEN
10:00am-3:00pm
Friday Closed
Saturday Closed
WOMONSCAPE CENTER HOURS
PS
THURSDAYS
6pm
PS
THURSDAYS
6pm
PS
THURSDAYS
6pm
PS
THURSDAYS
6pm
Monday Closed
OPEN
10am-3pm
OPEN
10am-3pm
OPEN
10am-3pm
OPEN
10am-3pm
OPEN
10am-3pm
PANCAKE
SUPPER (PS)
THURSDAYS
6pm
WOMONSCAPE CENTER, INC.
JULY 2015
WOMONSCAPE CENTER
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WOMONSCAPE CENTER, INC.
JULY 2015
And here is our installment of
~Womonscape Brings You The News, Which is Good~
On June 21st, the Womonscape Center hosted the film Iron Jawed Angels as part of its
continuing film seminar series. All who saw it were impressed with the strength and courage of the
women portrayed in the film, who were part of the U.S. Women’s Suffrage Movement of the early
1900s. The Womonscape Staff decided to find out a little more about the real women behind this
story. Here is a sampling of what we discovered.
Alice Paul (1885-1977) was born into a Quaker family in New
Jersey, where she grew up with the values of hard work, simple living, and
gender equality. In a 1974 interview, Ms. Paul explained, “When the
Quakers were founded…one of their principles was and is equality of the sexes.
So I never had any other idea…the principle was always there.”
Alice’s family was fairly well-off, so she was able to attend
Swarthmore College, to work in the Settlement House movement, and to
study social work at the Woodbrooke Settlement in England. While in
England she met radical suffragettes Emmaline and Christabel Pankhurst, and joined their militant
faction in demonstrating for suffrage, using tactics such as heckling and window-smashing. Ms.
Paul was arrested and imprisoned on several occasions, resulting in her participation in hunger
strikes and solidifying the principle of holding the governing political party responsible for giving
women the right to vote.
Alice returned to the U.S. in 1910, where she began using some of the same militant
strategies she had learned in England to help the suffrage cause at home. Along with two of her
friends. Lucy Burns and Crystal Eastman, she organized a parade in Washington, D.C. to gain
publicity for the suffrage movement. She and her supporters also founded the National Woman’s
Party and organized Silent Sentinels, picketers who held banners outside the White House with
incendiary slogans directed at President Wilson. When she and her supporters were jailed in cold,
unsanitary and rat-infested cells in Virginia’s Occoquan Workhouse, Alice and several other
suffragists staged a hunger strike, resulting in their being force-fed. Public outcry regarding the
suffragettes cause and treatment led to their release and the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment,
giving women he right to vote.
Alice Paul continued to work for equal rights for women throughout her life. She authored
the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923, which still has not been ratified by enough states to become
part of the Constitution. It reads:
“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States
or by any state on account of sex.”
When asked how she could work so tirelessly on one cause throughout her life, Alice credited
the philosophy of her mother, who said, “When you put your hand to the plow, you can’t put it down
until you get to the end of the row.”
Ruza Wenclawska (?? - 1977) was born in Poland and immigrated to the United States as
an infant. Her father worked in a coal mine in Pennsylvania. Ruza began working in mills and
factories in Pittsburgh at the age of 11, but had to take a break for two years at the age of 19, when
she developed tuberculosis. After she recovered, Ruza became a factory inspector
and trade union organizer in New York City, as well as a suffragist, actor, and poet.
At first, Ruza was uneasy about joining the National Women’s Party (NWP)
because she felt it was too focused on upper and middle classes, while she
considered herself to be a working class woman. However, the NWP was fortunate
to have her support, since she brought an ability to speak and organize, and was
able to inspire working women to help picket the White House as Silent Sentinels.
She was one of those arrested and assigned to the Occoquan Workhouse for her
picketing, where she participated in the hunger strike. While there, she kept a
secret diary, in which she described her experiences. Some selections from this
diary are printed on page 6 of this newsletter.
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WOMONSCAPE CENTER, INC.
JULY 2015
MALICE IN WONDERLAND
by Rayven
When I was a teenager my
father looked me in my eyes
and told me “A man will only be
interested in you for one thing.”
Four years into my marriage my
husband looked me in my eyes
and inquired “Why would any
man want to just talk to you?”
As I near 30 and become more
at home in my identity as a
proud black feminist, a
womanist whose voice refuses
to go unheard,I still struggle
with being recognized as more
than a body.
Where do we run when the
world tells us our worth is only
between our legs or in arbitrary
beauty standards? I’ve spent
the last year searching for that
answer and I’ve found that the
answer lies within and outside
of us. As cliche as this might
sound, the safest place is within
ourselves, but the truest place is
outside of us. For who can love
our broken pieces better than
the body that actually holds
them together? And who can
build up the broken pieces of
another better than someone
who is broken in the same way.
Of course, turning within isn’t
easy. It meant holding a giant
mirror up to the essence of who
I am and asking “Do I love me
as I am? And if not, why?” That
was a hard question to answer.
The first time I held up the mirror
the answer was no. I hated the
person who glared back at me, the
hollow eyes, the tattered pieces of
potential too scared to move into
the greatness that she was destined
for. Then I was forced to ask myself
why. The why would be easy, or so
I thought. Obviously, it was those
who had defiled me throughout my
life. Their words and actions
ripping away at my flesh, leaving me
weak and exposed, free to be
consumed by anyone who desired
to. The reality, though, was that
while they played a part, I gave
them the power they used to destroy
me. I was complicit in the murder
of my own soul, because I believed
that I deserved every lash they
placed upon my heart. Why did I believe I deserved such
vile? Because, I had been trained
not to see my own worth. We spend
billions of dollars each year teaching
women, young and old, that they
have no worth beyond their bodies.
We label young women as bossy,
know-it-alls, and strip away their
femininity when they dare to speak
their minds or flex their
intelligence. We shame them for
being prudish or promiscuous,
keeping them in a perpetual cycle of
self-doubt and indignity. We, those
of us who walk this earth, become
instruments of pain in this cycle
when we choose silence over
agitation and idleness over action.
We become the chains that bind
these young women, we become the
lashes upon their souls, we become
part of the problem, because we
refused to speak up and confront
the problem ourselves. I knew as I stared into the mirror
that as a woman I owed it not only
to myself, but also to the young
women walking on the shards of
brokenness behind me, to find my
voice. To declare that I and my
sisters upon this earth are more
than the bodies that hold us. We
are vibrant beings full of worth,
deserving of dignity and respect.
Especially, self-respect. In finding
my voice I found a love for the
layers of skin that encase my power.
The bits that the world refuses to
love are the pillars with which I hold
myself up. They are the arms that
march linked with my fellow women
through the gate of patriarchy. While the work of loving oneself is
never done, I can honestly say, more
often than not, that when I hold the
mirror up, I do love myself. It’s that
love that gives me the courage to
turn toward humanity and ask “Are
you brave enough to see a woman’s
worth?”
~Rayven is a feminist and proud
womanist freelancer and
communication maverick, bringing
about change and empowering her
clients at Radical Solutions, LLC
based in Virginia.
~Rayven will be our guest columnist
over the next several months.
She will write on a variety of
subjects.
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WOMONSCAPE CENTER, INC.
JULY 2015
Womonscape Center, Inc.
612 Oak Street
Baraboo WI 53913
First Class
Postage
JULY HOURS
Tuesday
•5:30pm-8:30pm
Wednesday •10:00am-3:00pm
Thursday
•2:00pm-8:30pm
Sunday
•10:00am-3:00pm
~The Womonscape Center, Inc. is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. All donations are tax-deductible.~
Excerpts from the Prison Diary of Suffragist Ruza Wenclawska, 1917
~Force is so stupid a weapon. I feel so happy doing my bit for decency, for our war, which
after all, is real and fundamental.
~The women are all so magnificent, so beautiful. Alice Paul is as thin as ever, pale and
large-eyed. We have been in solitary for five weeks. There is nothing to tell but that the days
go by somehow. I have felt quite feeble the last few days: faint, so that I could hardly get my
hair brushed, my arms ached so. But to-day I’m well again. Alice Paul and I talk back and
forth though we are at opposite ends of the building and a hall door also shuts us apart.
Occasionally—thrills—we escape from behind our iron-barred doors and visit. Great
laughter and rejoicing!
Womonscape
Center, Inc.
612 Oak St.
Baraboo, WI
53913
~The poor soul who feeds me got liberally besprinkled during the process. I heard myself
making the most hideous sounds…One feels so forsaken when one lies prone and people
shove a pipe down one’s stomach….The doctor thinks I take it well. I hate the thought of Alice
Paul and the others if I take it well…
~All the officers here know we are making this hunger strike and that women fighting for
liberty may be considered political prisoners; we have told them. God knows we don’t want
other women ever to have to do this over again.
• We are very pleased to be here. We welcome you, your family of origin and your family of friends.•
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