A Week of Women

It's been some time since I've posted. Last week was busier than some have been recently. But it was also an eventful week for women - some very well-known, some known less widely.

Major festivities began over a week ago for the Diamond Jubilee of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, who acceded to the throne of the British Commonwealth in 1952, when she was not even 26 years old. The British channels that I receive courtesy of my local cable company were full - indeed they still haven't finished - of coverage of events, reminiscences and anecdotes about the Royal Family and its various vicissitudes over the years. For those who are interested, here is a link to the Official Website of the British Monarchy.

Because of our English heritage and also because my mother's name was Elizabeth (when I was little, I believed that the Queen had been named after my mother - OK, I was pretty sheltered), I have always paid attention to the British Royal Family. I am not alone in this, although some people I know would die before they would ever admit their own interest. So, during part of last week - especially when the weather was rotten - I reviewed episodes of The Tudors on DVD.

Yes, I do realize that the current Royal Family is "Windsor." But it was Henry VIII, a Tudor, who so famously - or infamously - broke with Roman Catholicism way back when to found his own Church so that he could get the annulment/divorce that the Catholic Pope had denied him. I have always wondered how history might have been different if the Pope had not been so stubborn, which probably would not have been the case had Queen Katherine's family not been so powerful. After all, many monarchs of the time had annulments granted.  Or even how different it might have been had a much later king, George III, been a tad more understanding about the early colonists' grievances in the Americas. But my alternative histories were not to be.

Last Thursday and Friday, another very famous woman, the courageous Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, passed briefly through Geneva, then Bern, on her way to Oslo, belatedly to collect the Nobel Peace Prize that she won in 1991. Unfortunately, her passage through Switzerland was not physically pleasant for her as she was taken ill after finding the "plane trip out to the West extremely exhausting and a little bit disorienting because [she] couldn't adjust to the new time as quickly...."

But my last woman reference for this post is State Representative Lisa Brown, who was little-known outside the US State of Michigan until the memorable day last week when she dared to utter the word "vagina" while protesting a GOP measure intended to restrict - yet again - women's reproductive choices. The delicate ears of the GOP Representatives were so afflicted that they would not allow her and another legislator, Barb Byrum, to speak again - on any subject - for the remainder of the session because "what she said was so offensive." Today, Rep. Brown has been joined by other Michigan women lawmakers in a public recitation of the 1996 play, "The Vagina Monologues" on the Michigan Capitol steps.

Hey there, Good Ole GOP Boys, if you are so offended by the anatomically correct term "vagina," then don't try to regulate it! Frankly, if there is anyone who is offensive, it is you!