LWV Teaneck

Join The League of Women Voters of Teaneck

2010-11-14T07:28:00.000-08:00

The League of Women Voters Teaneck (LWV Teaneck)

Pictured: Diane Schwarz, Joyce Jacobs, Barbara Ostroth, Pat Libutti, Doris Long Thurber, Shirley Sosland, Sen.Loretta Weinberg (at podium), Naomi Cramer, and Mayor Hameedudin. Town Council meeting, Sept. 28th, 2010

...is a nonpartisan political organization, encourages the informed and active participation in government, works to increase understanding all major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.

LWV Teaneck’s members organize and run an Observer Corps, Candidate Forums for the Board of Education and Town Council elections and Voter Registration Drives. The LWV Teaneck has been in the USA since Feb. 14, 1920, the year the 19th Amendment was passed, and are the proud descendents of the suffragists. LWV has been in Teaneck since April,1952.

LWV members look at current issues with resources to formulate balanced positions with facts. Topics are studied to provide positions for local, state and national levels and have included:"In-State Tuition for Unauthorized Immigrants", (2010), "Health Care Reform" (2009), "National Popular Vote Compact" (2009), and, currently, "The Federal GovernmentRole in Public Education' (2010-2011)

2011: 91th Anniversary of the Passage of the Nineteenth Amendment
2012: 92nd Anniversary of the LWV of the United States
2012: The year you join the League?

League Information:
The LWV -US: http://www.lwv.org/ Policies, positions, all 50 state's contacts and resources.

New Jersey: http://www.lwvnj.org/ Blog, contacts for NJ, history and positions.

Bergen County ILO: http://lwvbergen.org/ Local contacts, photo gallery, county government
Questions? lwvteaneck@gmail.com

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League of Women Voters of Teaneck Membership Application Form

Print this out, fill out, and contact lwvteaneck@gmail.com for the mailing address.

Name _______________________________

Address _____________________________

Telephone Number _______________

E-mail address __________________

Enclosed: _______LWV Teaneck Dues: $55. (Not tax deductible)

_______Donation to LWV Teaneck (Not tax deductible)

_______LWVNJEF :The Education Fund of LWV New Jersey (tax deductible)

Note: $25 or more will also benefit Teaneck, so please make separate checks payable to LWVNJEF.

Council's and State's Recognition of LWV Teaneck

2010-09-29T09:13:00.000-07:00

Pictured; Diane Schwarz,Joyce Jacobs, Barbara Ostroth, Pat Libutti,Doris Long Thurber, Shirley Sosland, Sen.Loretta Weinberg (at podium), Naomi Cramer, and Mayor Hameedudin.

LWV-Teaneck at Council Meeting Sept. 28, Receive Congratulations from Mayor Hameedudin & Sen. Weinberg (From League Lines, Oct. 2010)

At the beginning of the regularly scheduled September 28 Town Council meeting, the League of Women Voters of Teaneck were congratulated on the ninetieth anniversary of both the enactment of the Nineteenth Amendment and the founding of the League of Women Voters-US. Mayor Mohammed Hameeduddin presented us with a certificate of appreciation “celebrating ninety years of voting privileges.”

Seven LWV Teaneck members were present, dressed in white and purple, the colors of the suffragists.

Senator Loretta Weinberg and Rep. Valerie Vainieri Huttle prepared a joint legislative resolution that "this legislature hereby salutes the Teaneck Chapter of the League of Women Voters, acknowledges the ninetieth Anniversary of the enactment of the 19th Amendment, and extends sincere best wishes.” Sen. Weinberg presented this plaque to Patricia O’Brien Libutti, President, League of Women Voters Teaneck. Weinberg told of the importance of the League right now, in the battle to keep Women’s Health Care funding.” The Teaneck League has always been important.”

Patricia commented on the recognition of the LWV Teaneck, concluding with an invitation: ”Men and women who are interested in becoming a member --- you can work with voter registration, candidates' forums, and fact-finding on legislative issues.”

Thanks go to Barbara Ostroth, who worked with Town Council members to place us on the agenda, review comments and develop talking points; to Naomi Cramer, who contacted State legislators' offices to request the resolution; to Shirley Sosland, Joyce Jacobs and Louise Williams who prepared our purple sashes. The next event of this magnitude -- as date-counting occurs -- is our Sixtieth Anniversary in April, 2012!

Full comments:
We, the League of Women Voters of Teaneck, thank you for your recognition of our parent organization.

90 years ago, on Feb. 14, 1920, the League of Women Voters of the United States was founded by suffragists as a nonpartisan political organization. LWV encouraged informed and active participation in government. LWV worked on influence on public policy through education and advocacy.

90 years ago, on August 26, 1920, the 19th amendment passed- and women got the vote. We celebrate both these anniversaries in 2010 by dressing in the suffragists' colors of white and purple.

Almost 60 years ago, The League of Women Voters of Teaneck began with nonpartisan participation in government through education and advocacy. We have stayed with our roots while adapting to constant change. Look for us on FaceBook!

In 2010, we are both historic ---and contemporary. Our 60th anniversary in Teaneck is in 2012, and we will continue serving Teaneck in new ways. Men and women who are interested in becoming a member ---you can work with voter registration, candidates' forums, and fact-finding on legislative issues.

Patricia O’Brien Libutti
President, LWV Teaneck

Websites, Women and Politics

2010-07-03T14:03:00.000-07:00

1912 Suffragist Parade

Web Sites for Women's Equality Day

Basic Information

League of Women Voters
Frequently Asked Questions about Registration and Voting, Know your State’s Deadlines, and sections on major issues (Campaign Finance Reform,
Civil Liberties, Election Administration, Ethics and Lobbying Reform, Global Climate Change, Health Care Reform, Tax Policy, etc.) make the League site an essential one for voters. Voter information is provided in English and Spanish.

New Jersey Board of Elections

To register to vote, turn to this central site. All the information you need, including downloadable registration forms (in English, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, and Gujarati.)

Research on Issues

League of Women Voters, above

American Association of University Women
Examine AAUW’s position statements on issues. Relevant to a voter examining issues is the AAUW report Where the Girls Are (2008). which examines gender parity in education. Pay equity, an issue since women’s suffrage began, is updated in the AAUW report Behind the Gap (2007, downloadable).

Center for American Women and Politics
Features to explore and use later in the election season include CAWP Election Watch. Those interested in fact-gathering about the voting populations by gender and race will find tables on this site.

International Women's Suffrage
Gain a wider perspective on woman’s suffrage. This site charts the dates women in each country in the world gained suffrage.

Living Room Candidate Look at the television-and Web- ads for presidential candidates, back to 1953.

Project Vote Smart
Look up a candidate’s position on issues (termed a Political Courage measure on this site.)

Women’s Vote

Emily's List: Women Vote .
This blog expertly summarizes political activity by women in support of women candidates.

The White House Project
“Add women, change everything.”
Use the “Research and Resources” section to focus on women political leaders, the skills needed and their representation in media.

Women's Voices, Women's Vote
This site provides materials and connections for single women to promote the vote to others.

Young Voters

Rock the Vote
Rock the Vote is a site on voting aimed at young people. The site uses music and high technology to engage the young voter.

Declare Yourself

Norman Lear designed and funded this site for young voters. The section on Issues contrasts candidates’ positions on each issue.

Women's History Month: Morrison's book : 'A Mercy & Stanton Quotes

2010-02-23T07:12:00.000-08:00

Recent Recommendations

When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women

from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins, 2009, 480 pages.

A'Mercy. By Toni Morison

Claudette Colvin : Twice toward justice by Phillip Hoose.

Bone Black: Memories of girlhood By bell hooks (lower caps are hers)

'A Mercy, by Toni Morrison, has gathered much critical attention in the last two years.
The following links take you to selected reviews and extras, such as Toni Morrison's reading of A Mercy. You can download each segmant.

Title origin from NPR

When the time came to bestow a title on her newest novel, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison struggled to find just the right word, something that would perfectly describe the book's denouement.

She fiddled around with the word "mercy," but that didn't feel quite right; the book isn't about large-scale compassion or pity or grace, says Morrison.

Then, with the help of her editor, the author put an article in front: A Mercy. With one small word, the title no longer suggested "the large world of people doing nice things or ... religious versions of God's mercy, but a human gesture — just mercy — and that worked for me."

New York Times: D. Gates, excerpt
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/books/review/Gates-t.html?_r=1"...Toni Morrison has already used the title “Paradise” for the 1998 novel that I think is her weakest. But it would have been a good fit for her new book, “A Mercy,” which reveals her, once more, as a conscious inheritor of America’s pastoral tradition, even as she implicitly criticizes it. Her two greatest novels, “Song of Solomon” and “Beloved,” render the rural countryside so evocatively that you can smell the earth; even in the urban novel “Jazz,” the most memorable images are of the South its characters have left behind. But Morrison, of course, is African-American, and hers is a distinctly postcolonial pastoral: a career-long refutation of Robert Frost’s embarrassing line “The land was ours before we were the land’s.”

Wikipedia Excerpt "A Mercy is Toni Morrison's 9th novel. It was first published in 2008. A Mercy reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery in early America. It is both the story of mothers and daughters and the story of a primitive America. It made the New York Times Book Review list of "10 Best Books of 2008" as chosen by the paper's editors."

Contents [hide]
1 Synopsis
2 Reviews
3 External links
4 References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercy_(novel)

NPR: Hear Toni Morrison read the book http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95961382
From NPR:
:In this special edition of Book Tour, NPR is honored to be the first to present Pulitzer Prize-winner and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison reading from her new novel, A Mercy. A stunning return to form for Morrison, A Mercy deserves to be counted alongside some of her most acclaimed novels, such as Sula and Beloved.

The stories in A Mercy are as layered and contested as the barely mapped topology traversed by its characters. Set in the 1680s, when this country's reliance on slavery as an economic engine was just beginning, A Mercy explores the repercussions of an enslaved mother's desperate act: She offers her small daughter to a stranger in payment for her master's debt.

Four women are central to this narrative: a traumatized Native-American servant known as Lina; Florens, the coltish enslaved girl at the story's center; an enigmatic wild child named Sorrow; and Rebekka, their European mistress — kind, politically contrarian and reeling from the loss of one infant after another in her isolated homestead."

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON QUOTES
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.
• Truth is the only safe ground to stand upon.
• The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.
• Self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice.
• The happiest people I have known have been those who gave themselves no concern about their own souls, but did their uttermost to mitigate the miseries of others.
• I am always busy, which is perhaps the chief reason why I am always well.
• Whatever the theories may be of woman's dependence on man, in the supreme moments of her life he can not bear her burdens. (from "Solitude of Self")
• Nature never repeats herself, and the possibilities of one human soul will never be found in another. (from "Solitude of Self")
• Because man and woman are the complement of one another, we need woman's thought in national affairs to make a safe and stable government.
• Woman will always be dependent until she holds a purse of her own.
• A mind always in contact with children and servants, whose aspirations and ambitions rise no higher than the roof that shelters it, is necessarily dwarfed in its proportions.
• It requires philosophy and heroism to rise above the opinion of the wise men of all nations and races.
• Womanhood is the great fact in her life; wifehood and motherhood are but incidental relations.
• Women have crucified the Mary Wollstonecrafts, the Fanny Wrights, and the George Sands of all ages. Men mock us with the fact and say we are ever cruel to each other.
• Men say we are ever cruel to each other. Let us end this ignoble record and henceforth stand by womanhood. If Victoria Woodhull must be crucified, let men drive the spikes and plait the crown of thorns.
• So long as women are slaves, men will be knaves.
• It would be ridiculous to talk of male and female atmospheres, male and female springs or rains, male and female sunshine . . . . how much more ridiculous is it in relation to mind, to soul, to thought, where there is as undeniably no such thing as sex, to talk of male and female education and of male and female schools. [written with Susan B. Anthony]
• To throw obstacles in the way of a complete education is like putting out the eyes.
• The prejudice against color, of which we hear so much, is no stronger than that against sex. It is produced by the same cause, and manifested very much in the same way. The negro's skin and the woman's sex are both prima facie evidence that they were intended to be in subjection to the white Saxon man.
• The heyday of woman's life is the shady side of fifty.
• I think if women would indulge more freely in vituperation, they would enjoy ten times the health they do. It seems to me they are suffering from repression.
at the 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions] The new religion will teach the dignity of human nature and its infinite possibilities for development. It will teach the solidarity of the race -- that all must rise and fall as one. Its creed will be justice, liberty, equality for all the children of earth.
• The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation.
• The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the superstitions of the Christian religion.
• Among the clergy we find our most violent enemies, those most opposed to any change in woman's position.
• I asked them why one read in the synagogue service every week the "I thank thee, O Lord, that I was not born a woman." "It is not meant in an unfriendly spirit, and it is not intended to degrade or humiliate women." "But it does, nevertheless. Suppose the service read, 'I think thee, O Lord, that I was not born a jackass.' Could that be twisted in any way into a compliment to the jackass?"
“The best protection any woman can have . . . is courage.”
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal”
Come, come, my conservative friend, wipe the dew off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving”
Thus far, women have been the mere echoes of men. Our laws and constitutions, our creeds and codes, and the customs of social life are all of masculine origin. The true woman is as yet a dream of the future.”
The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation”
“I am always busy, which is perhaps the chief reason why I am always well.”

Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility.”
“The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.”
Come, come, my conservative friend, wipe the dew off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving.

Human beings lose their logic in their vindictiveness.

I am always busy, which is perhaps the chief reason why I am always well.

I shall not grow conservative with age.

I thought that the chief thing to be done in order to equal boys was to be learned and courageous. So I decided to study Greek and learn to manage a horse.

It is impossible for one class to appreciate the wrongs of another.

Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility.

Self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice.

Surely the immutable laws of the universe can teach more impressive and exalted lessons than the holy books of all the religions on earth.

The best protection any woman can have... is courage.

The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation.

The greatest block today in the way of woman's emancipation is the church, the canon law, the Bible and the priesthood.

The heyday of woman's life is the shady side of fifty.

The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.

The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the superstition of the Christian religion.

The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.

The more complete the despotism, the more smoothly all things move on the surface.

The prolonged slavery of women is the darkest page in human history.

The religious superstitions of women perpetuate their bondage more than all other adverse influences.

The whole tone of Church teaching in regard to women is, to the last degree, contemptuous and degrading.

The woman is uniformly sacrificed to the wife and mother.

To live for a principle, for the triumph of some reform by which all mankind are to be lifted up to be wedded to an idea may be, after all, the holiest and happiest of marriages.

To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.

To throw obstacles in the way of a complete education is like putting out the eyes.

We are the only class in history that has been left to fight its battles alone, unaided by the ruling powers. White labor and the freed black men had their champions, but where are ours?

We found nothing grand in the history of the Jews nor in the morals inculcated in the Pentateuch. I know of no other books that so fully teach the subjection and degradation of woman.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.

Woman's discontent increases in exact proportion to her development.

Women of all classes are awakening to the necessity of self-support, but few are willing to do the ordinary useful work for which they are fitted.

Words cannot describe the indignation a proud woman feels for her sex in disfranchisement.

The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.

With age come the inner, the higher life. Who would be forever young, to dwell always in externals?

Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Her Birthday, Her Quotes

2010-02-21T08:06:00.000-08:00

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON QUOTES
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.

• Truth is the only safe ground to stand upon.

• The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.

• Self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice.

• The happiest people I have known have been those who gave themselves no concern about their own souls, but did their uttermost to mitigate the miseries of others.

• I am always busy, which is perhaps the chief reason why I am always well.

• Whatever the theories may be of woman's dependence on man, in the supreme moments of her life he can not bear her burdens. (from "Solitude of Self")

• Nature never repeats herself, and the possibilities of one human soul will never be found in another. (from "Solitude of Self")

• Because man and woman are the complement of one another, we need woman's thought in national affairs to make a safe and stable government.

• Woman will always be dependent until she holds a purse of her own.

• A mind always in contact with children and servants, whose aspirations and ambitions rise no higher than the roof that shelters it, is necessarily dwarfed in its proportions.

• It requires philosophy and heroism to rise above the opinion of the wise men of all nations and races.

• Womanhood is the great fact in her life; wifehood and motherhood are but incidental relations.

• Women have crucified the Mary Wollstonecrafts, the Fanny Wrights, and the George Sands of all ages. Men mock us with the fact and say we are ever cruel to each other.

• Men say we are ever cruel to each other. Let us end this ignoble record and henceforth stand by womanhood. If Victoria Woodhull must be crucified, let men drive the spikes and plait the crown of thorns.

• So long as women are slaves, men will be knaves.

• It would be ridiculous to talk of male and female atmospheres, male and female springs or rains, male and female sunshine . . . . how much more ridiculous is it in relation to mind, to soul, to thought, where there is as undeniably no such thing as sex, to talk of male and female education and of male and female schools. [written with Susan B. Anthony]

• To throw obstacles in the way of a complete education is like putting out the eyes.

• The prejudice against color, of which we hear so much, is no stronger than that against sex. It is produced by the same cause, and manifested very much in the same way. The negro's skin and the woman's sex are both prima facie evidence that they were intended to be in subjection to the white Saxon man.

• The heyday of woman's life is the shady side of fifty.

• I think if women would indulge more freely in vituperation, they would enjoy ten times the health they do. It seems to me they are suffering from repression.

At the 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions] The new religion will teach the dignity of human nature and its infinite possibilities for development. It will teach the solidarity of the race -- that all must rise and fall as one. Its creed will be justice, liberty, equality for all the children of earth.

• The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation.

• The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the superstitions of the Christian religion.

• Among the clergy we find our most violent enemies, those most opposed to any change in woman's position.

• I asked them why one read in the synagogue service every week the "I thank thee, O Lord, that I was not born a woman." "It is not meant in an unfriendly spirit, and it is not intended to degrade or humiliate women." "But it does, nevertheless. Suppose the service read, 'I think thee, O Lord, that I was not born a jackass.' Could that be twisted in any way into a compliment to the jackass?"

“The best protection any woman can have . . . is courage.”

Prepoared for the Women's Rights Information Center, Nov.2008

Suffragists to Remember

2010-02-20T09:30:00.000-08:00

Remember these heroic women and the circumstances they overcame:

Carrie Chapman Catt: Founder: LWV, 1920

As we come upon Equality Day---August 26th-Remember these heroic women and the circumstances they overcame:

>

Carrie Chapman Catt: Founder: LWV, 1920

Inez Belmont: Glamorous figurehead, womens suffrage

Alice Paul: look at he website illustrating her history

New Jersey Suffragists