Like many of you, I was saddened to hear of the passing of Olivia Newton John. I remember arguing with my sister about who got to play Sandy in our living room re-enactment of Grease. I was older (10 to her 8) so of course I always won! We would dress up, put the album on and sing and dance to the songs. Then there was Zanadu and Let’s Get Physical, all the music and movement a young girl could want.
Cancer took her WAY too soon as it does so many of our sisters. Today, we remember and honor the gift she has been to us all with her beautiful smile, seemingly endless energy and her public sharing of her journey with cancer. In her honor, find your favorite Olivia Newton John music video, turn up the volume, and DANCE!
The Women of August...
Last month we started a practice of sharing the extraordinary accomplishments of the Women on whose shoulders we stand. This is the list of significant events that happened in the month of August and are impacting our lives everyday.
August Women’s History Events (Women’s National History Alliance)
- August 6, 1965 – The Voting Rights Act outlaws the discriminatory literacy tests that had been used to prevent African Americans from voting. Suffrage is finally fully extended to African American women
- August 8, 1969 – Executive order 11478 issued by President Nixon requires each federal department and agency to establish and maintain an affirmative action program of equal employment opportunity for civilian employees and applicants
- August 9, 1995 – Roberta Cooper Ramo becomes the first woman to hold the office of president of the American Bar Association
- August 10, 1993 – Ruth Bader Ginsburg is sworn in as the second woman and 107th Justice to serve on the US Supreme Court
- August 12, 1972 – Wendy Rue founds the National Association for Female Executives (NAFE), the largest businesswomen’s organization in the United States
- August 14, 1986 – Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper retires from active duty in the US Navy. A pioneering computer scientist and inventor of the computer language COBOL, she was the oldest officer still on active duty at the time of her retirement
- August 23, 1902 – Fanny Farmer opens the “School of Cookery” in Boston, MA
- August 26, 1920 – The 19th Amendment of the US Constitution is ratified granting women the right to vote
- August 26, 1970 – Betty Friedan leads a nationwide protest called the “Women’s Strike for Equality” in New York City on the fiftieth anniversary of women’s suffrage
- August 26, 1971 – The first Women’s Equality Day, initiated by Representative Bella Abzug, is established by Presidential Proclamation and reaffirmed annually
- August 28, 1963 – More than 250,000 gather for a march on Washington, DC, and listen to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech
- August 30, 1984 – Judith A. Resnick is the second U.S. woman in space, traveling on the first flight of the space shuttle Discovery
Books and Media
On the last Goddess Talk, many of us shared the Books, Podcasts and other media that we have been listening to and reading since last month.
- Becoming You - (Series) on Apple+
- Century of Struggle (Book) - Eleanor Flexner
- Old Enough (Series)
- The Power (Movie)
- Cloud Cuckoo Land (Book) - Anthony Doerr
- Horse (Book) - Geraldine Brooks
- Women, Food and God (Book) - Geneen Roth
- Island Beneath the Sea (Book) - Isabel Allende
- Prey (Movie) - YouTube, etc
- Hysteria (Podcast) - Crooked Media
- Money with Mission (Podcast) - Felecia Froe
