FIFTY WOMEN WHO HAVE SHAPED THE 20th CENTURY.
This weeks presantation was on fifty women who helped shape the 20th century. My focus will be on three of these women, namely ; Pincess Diana, Oprah Winfrey and Coco Chanel. Princess Diana was born on the 1st of July 1961 into Aristocratic background.She got married to the Prince of Wales,but her marriage was short lived. After her divorce ,she did a great deal of charity projects particularly for the red cross in a campaign against landmines,she used her influence to positively assist the campaign against landmines,a cause that won the Nobel Peace Price of 1997.She visited Bosnia with the landmines Survivors Network in August 1997 just days before her death.Diana was one of the first high profiled celebrities photographed touching a person infected with the HIV virus.Her contribution to changing the public opinion of Aids sufferers was summerized in December 2001 by Bill Clinton former US President at the Diana Princess of Wales lecture on Aids. It helped change the worlds opinion about Aids and gave victims hope.Diana was said to be one the worlds most famous women, a pre-eminent celebrity of her generation.To her admirers the Princess of Wales was a role model.Diana's philanthropic legacy has inspired many to give to charitable causes."The Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund" was created as a way of continuing her work in the United States. Diana made philanthropic work glamorous especially among the rich and famous .The legacy left by Pricess Diana is the framework for living an admirable existence.To the end ,she remained a figure of public fascination and admiration.
OPRAH WINFREY.
Through the power of media, Oprah Winfrey has created an unparalleled connection with people around the world. As supervising producer and host of the top-rated, award-winning "The Oprah Winfrey Show", she has entertained, enlightened and uplifted millions of viewers for the past two decades. Her accomplishments as a global media leader and philanthropist have established her as one of the most respected and admired public figures today. Oprah has long believed that education is the door to freedom, offering a chance at a brighter future. Through her private charity, "The Oprah Winfrey Foundation", she has awarded hundreds of grants to organizations that support the education and empowerment of women, children and families in the United States and around the world. Amongst her various philanthropic contributions, she has donated millions of dollars toward providing a better education for students who have merit but no means. She also has developed schools to educate thousands of underserved children internationally and created "The Oprah Winfrey Scholars Program," which gives scholarships to students determined to use their education to give back to their communities in the United States and abroad.
In December 2002, The Oprah Winfrey Foundation expanded its global humanitarian efforts with her "ChristmasKindness South Africa 2002" initiative that included visits to orphanages and rural schools in South Africa where 50,000 children received gifts of food, clothing, athletic shoes, school supplies, books and toys. Sixty-three rural schools received libraries and teacher education.
During a December 2000 visit with Nelson Mandela, Oprah pledged $10 million to build a school in South Africa. As that commitment broadened, she established The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation, to which she has contributed more than $40 million toward the creation of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls—South Africa, which opened in January 2007. Located in a 28-building campus in Henley-on-Klip, the Leadership Academy is a state-of-the-art independent school that will engender high standards of academic achievement and service leadership for girls. Its first 152 accepted 7th and 8th grade students, who show outstanding promise despite their impoverished backgrounds and social circumstances, represent all nine South African provinces. By 2011, the Leadership Academy will accommodate approximately 75 learners per grade, for a total of approximately 450 learners, grades 7 through 12. Her vision is that the Leadership Academy will help develop the future women leaders of South Africa.
In a 1997 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, Oprah encouraged viewers to use their lives to make a difference in the lives of others, which led to the creation of the public charity Oprah's Angel Network in 1998. To date, Oprah's Angel Network has raised more than $50 million, with 100% of audience donations going to non-profit organizations across the globe. Oprah's Angel Network has helped establish scholarships and schools, support women's shelters and build youth centers and homes—changing the future for people all over the world.
Oprah's commitment to children also led her to initiate the National Child Protection Act in 1991, when she testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to establish a national database of convicted child abusers. On December 20, 1993, President Clinton signed the national "Oprah Bill" into law.Her dedication to human suffrage is beyond description.
COCO CHANEL.
Coco Chanel was born as Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel on the 19th of August 1883 in Samur, France.She was best known as the designer who popularized the "little black dress".
Designer Coco Chanel gave the world the little black dress, Chanel No. 5 perfume, and a casually classic notion of style that influenced women's clothes throughout the 20th century. Coco -- a nickname meaning "little pet" -- was raised in an orphanage, where she learned to sew. In 1910 she began selling hats from her own shop, and by the 1920s her fashion business had expanded to include a couture house, her own textile factory and a line of perfumes that included the famous No. 5. Chanel took women's fashions away from corseted styles and introduced casual, practical clothing that borrowed fabrics and attitudes from men's fashion. She was the first to introduce black as a fashion color; her versatile, semi-formal "little black dress" became a Chanel trademark and an enduring fashion standard. During and after World War II Chanel's popularity waned, and her love affair with a Nazi officer kept her in a form of self-imposed exile in Switzerland for more than a decade. She made a comeback in 1954 and her designs became some of the most popular in the western world, especially in the United States. Since her death the Coco Chanel Company has been under the direction of designer Karl Lagerfeld.
Katharine Hepburn portrayed Chanel on Broadway in a musical, "COCO" .
MARILYN MONROE
In my opinion Marylyn Monroe should not be in the group of fifty .To the best of my knowledge there was no cotribution from her in any humanitarian aspect. She was a famous actress ,yes , but there are equally famous actresses ,for example Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lopez ,who are all phillanthropists.Probably it was her tragic life , and her mysterious death but that wouldnt have influenced anyones life.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
WOMEN'S STUDIES WEEK 1- JOURNAL
JOURNAL-WEEK 1
25th July 2007
It was the 25th of July 2007,a beautiful sunny day, very unusual for winter but this lovely weather inspired me to leave home early for school. I arrived on campus twenty minutes early full of anticipation and excitement. Naturally, I was a bit apprehensive not knowing what to expect with the new course, but all that was eradicated when I realized that the lecturer was Karen, who had taught me in one of my previous courses.
The other ladies kept streaming in one by one; finally we were set to begin. Our lecturer gave an overview of the course with guidelines of the course content. She handed out the lecture program and we talked about the following;
• The scope and content of Women’s Studies 1 and locate and evaluate online information
• Assessment
• What is History?
• Video- on Women of the sun- Alinta the Flame.
My feeling about the course is one of excitement. I am passionate about searching for information on the Internet, since it is a way of broadening my scope of learning and being abreast with the times considering the fact that I am from a different cultural background, there is still so much to learn. Am particularly excited about the Aboriginal Women and am happy to be doing this course because it will give an insight into their history. I also have a lot of ongoing “self talk” questions, in my head about them and am hoping the course will help me answer some of them, if not all.
Having said this, there are aspects of the course that I am apprehensive about, that is setting up the blog and journal writing. Actually, it’s not the blog setting per say, past experience has taught me a thing about loosing stuff on my blog. I set up a blog for one of my courses –Women and the Internet, and I kept loosing my work, it was a frustrating experience. I was unable to figure out why this kept happening.
Since History is said to be the description of things that happened in the past, the idea that History is open to interpretation would only confuse facts, and because people have different interpretations to the same event and are bound to interpret the same event differently, we would never have the correct facts if History were open to interpretation.
I have been witness to a lot of misrepresentation of facts, but one that I remember vividly was an incident, which occurred a few years ago, back home [Ghana]. My step dad collapsed and was rushed to the hospital, the two women who were present at the scene delivered the news to us, his children, one said he died on the spot the other said he died when he was being taken to hospital. It happened that he was not dead at all. This is an example of how differently people can recount same events, so imagine History being recounted in this manner.
In the video entitled, Women of the sun-Alinta the Flame, traditional Aboriginal culture was portrayed in all aspects of their lives. I learnt that the Aboriginal people held a deep spiritual connection to their land dating back tens of thousands of years ago, and would not let go of any part of it to any one. The youth held their elders in high esteem; they would usually kneel to talk to them, as a sign of respect, the young girls had good moral values, also Alinta was taught by her mother who in turn helped to teach the other girls, I realized also that even though the women joined the men at the beach, they sat away from the men. What I learnt about marriage also is, even though the man proposed to Alinta she was kept at her parents home, the man keeps coming with gifts to see her for a period of time before the customary marriage ceremony is performed and finally he is allowed to take her away with him to his home.
The role of the men in the tribe is to look for food for their families and protect the women and children. The men went hunting; they used the spears to attack and the shield to defend. They took decisions on family related issues. The older women on the other hand, took care of the young girls, taught them about their culture, life in general and also to dance. The older women played an important role in the decision-making process by giving suggestions and advising the men and their opinion is taken into account.
The relationship between the men and women is mutual and cordial except that the men sat in their on groups away from the women. The gender roles in Australia today differ completely from that of the Aborigines in this movie.
After watching the video, I empathise with the tribe; reason being that, these were simple people who were leaving a quite life and minding their own business until the convicts and settlers arrived and threw everything out of proportion for them, killed everyone except Alinta and her child and took their land. I find this hard to comprehend.
25th July 2007
It was the 25th of July 2007,a beautiful sunny day, very unusual for winter but this lovely weather inspired me to leave home early for school. I arrived on campus twenty minutes early full of anticipation and excitement. Naturally, I was a bit apprehensive not knowing what to expect with the new course, but all that was eradicated when I realized that the lecturer was Karen, who had taught me in one of my previous courses.
The other ladies kept streaming in one by one; finally we were set to begin. Our lecturer gave an overview of the course with guidelines of the course content. She handed out the lecture program and we talked about the following;
• The scope and content of Women’s Studies 1 and locate and evaluate online information
• Assessment
• What is History?
• Video- on Women of the sun- Alinta the Flame.
My feeling about the course is one of excitement. I am passionate about searching for information on the Internet, since it is a way of broadening my scope of learning and being abreast with the times considering the fact that I am from a different cultural background, there is still so much to learn. Am particularly excited about the Aboriginal Women and am happy to be doing this course because it will give an insight into their history. I also have a lot of ongoing “self talk” questions, in my head about them and am hoping the course will help me answer some of them, if not all.
Having said this, there are aspects of the course that I am apprehensive about, that is setting up the blog and journal writing. Actually, it’s not the blog setting per say, past experience has taught me a thing about loosing stuff on my blog. I set up a blog for one of my courses –Women and the Internet, and I kept loosing my work, it was a frustrating experience. I was unable to figure out why this kept happening.
Since History is said to be the description of things that happened in the past, the idea that History is open to interpretation would only confuse facts, and because people have different interpretations to the same event and are bound to interpret the same event differently, we would never have the correct facts if History were open to interpretation.
I have been witness to a lot of misrepresentation of facts, but one that I remember vividly was an incident, which occurred a few years ago, back home [Ghana]. My step dad collapsed and was rushed to the hospital, the two women who were present at the scene delivered the news to us, his children, one said he died on the spot the other said he died when he was being taken to hospital. It happened that he was not dead at all. This is an example of how differently people can recount same events, so imagine History being recounted in this manner.
In the video entitled, Women of the sun-Alinta the Flame, traditional Aboriginal culture was portrayed in all aspects of their lives. I learnt that the Aboriginal people held a deep spiritual connection to their land dating back tens of thousands of years ago, and would not let go of any part of it to any one. The youth held their elders in high esteem; they would usually kneel to talk to them, as a sign of respect, the young girls had good moral values, also Alinta was taught by her mother who in turn helped to teach the other girls, I realized also that even though the women joined the men at the beach, they sat away from the men. What I learnt about marriage also is, even though the man proposed to Alinta she was kept at her parents home, the man keeps coming with gifts to see her for a period of time before the customary marriage ceremony is performed and finally he is allowed to take her away with him to his home.
The role of the men in the tribe is to look for food for their families and protect the women and children. The men went hunting; they used the spears to attack and the shield to defend. They took decisions on family related issues. The older women on the other hand, took care of the young girls, taught them about their culture, life in general and also to dance. The older women played an important role in the decision-making process by giving suggestions and advising the men and their opinion is taken into account.
The relationship between the men and women is mutual and cordial except that the men sat in their on groups away from the women. The gender roles in Australia today differ completely from that of the Aborigines in this movie.
After watching the video, I empathise with the tribe; reason being that, these were simple people who were leaving a quite life and minding their own business until the convicts and settlers arrived and threw everything out of proportion for them, killed everyone except Alinta and her child and took their land. I find this hard to comprehend.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)