Dollhouse is coming to an end, sooner than I’m ready to see it go.  The show has been controversial – some love it for (among other reasons) subversively integrating messages about the dangers of human trafficking, while others loathe it for (among other reasons) not addressing these issues directly enough.   Whichever argument you lean towards, Not A Doll is using the show to provide more information about the truth about human trafficking today.  According to the FAQ:

While the site was inspired by the TV series Dollhouse, it is in fact about the very real issues of human trafficking, poverty, oppression against women and children, the loss of self, and the negation of human rights. These are all issues that Dollhouse touches upon and as its audience, we have been compelled to attract greater attention to these very real monsters and find ways to combat them here and now.

I’ve only begun to explore the site, but am sure to miss Dollhouse.  Whether it incites you to get involved in organizations through donations of time or money, dialogue with others in your life, or just educate yourself about these issues, I appreciate that (at least for a while) Dollhouse, its creators, and its fans were willing to take a peek into the dark recesses of humanity.  Here’s hoping it leads us to make a difference.

Shoutouts to i09!

“There’s a direct connection between a woman’s ability to plan her family, space her pregnancies, and give birth safely, and her ability to get an education, work outside the home, support her family, and participate fully in the life of her community.

When a girl becomes a mother before she becomes literate, when a woman gives birth alone and is left with a permanent disability, when a mother toils daily to feed her large family but cannot convince her husband to agree to contraception, these struggles represent suffering that can and should be avoided. They represent potential that goes unfulfilled. And they also represent an opportunity to extend critical help to women worldwide and the children who depend on them.

Investing in the health of women, adolescents, and girls is not only the right thing to do; it is also the smart thing to do.”

- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s
Remarks on the 15th Anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development

Full transcript here via Jezebel.

Today we wrap up our series on the women who have won the Nobel Peace Prize.  The first nine are pictured above in an image from the Nobel Prize webpage, in order from left to right: 1. Baroness Bertha von Suttner (1905), 2. Jane Addams (1931), 3. Emily Green Balch (1946), 4-5. Betty Williams & Mairead Corrigan (1976), 6. Mother Teresa (1979), 7. Alva Myrdal (1982), 8. Aung San Suu Kyi (1991), and 9. Rigoberta Menchú Tum (1992).  Between then and now, three more women have won the prize.

10. Jody Williams - Jody Williams is an American teacher who won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.  The ICBL and its network of organizations advocate for international bans on the use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of landmines, and for increased resources for humanitarian mine clearance and assistance programs for mine victims.

Quote:  “Emotion without action is irrelevant.”
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11. Shirin Ebadi - Shirin Ebadi was the first Iranian and first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize when she was awarded the honor in 2003.  She is a lawyer and human rights activist who founded the Center for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran.  She received the award for her courageous efforts in the name of democracy and human rights, particularly women’s, children’s, and refugee rights in the Middle East.

Quote: “ Whenever women protest and ask for their rights, they are silenced with the argument that the laws are justified under Islam.  It is an unfounded argument.  It is not Islam at fault, but rather the patriarchal culture that uses its own interpretations to justify whatever it wants.”

12. Wangari Maathai - In 2004, Wangari Maathai became the first African woman and first environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.  In 1977 she founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental group which organizes poor rural women in Kenya to plant trees, combat deforestation, generate income, and stop soil erosion.

Quote: “We can work together for a better world with men and women of goodwill, those who radiate the intrinsic goodness of humankind…  Mankind’s universal values of love, compassion, solidarity, caring and tolerance should form the basis for [a] global ethic which should permeate culture, politics, trade, religion and philosophy.”

It is encouraging to note the increasing recognition both of women and people of color by the Nobel committee, although in over 100 years only 12 women have won the award.  Nobel prizes are also awarded in other fields, such as economics, literature, and physics.  In the history of the Nobel prizes, 39 women have won the awards, five of which in the current year – a new record.  I’ll close with the words of Dr. Carol Greider, this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for economics and the first woman to win said award:

I certainly hope it’s a sign that things are going to be different in the future. But I’m a scientist, right? This is one event. I’m not going to see one event and say it’s a trend. I hope it is.

I hope that you’ve learned as much as I have in our short series on these influential women.  I am ashamed to admit how little I knew about these women prior to my brief research.  Who are some of your unsung heroes?

We’re halfway through the 12 women in history awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  Today we take a look at three more humanitarian activists to receive this honor.

7. Alva Myrdal - Alva Myrdal was a Swedish sociologist and politician who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982.  She contributed to the development of the Swedish welfare state and was later appointed to head a U.N. committee on welfare, the first woman to receive such a high appointment in the organization.  She additionally worked with the U.N. on matters of disarmament, and won the award for her vocal support of this cause along with Alfonso Garcia Robles.

Quote: “We can hope that men will understand that the interest of all are the same, that hope lies in cooperation. We can then perhaps keep PEACE.”
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8. Aung San Suu Kyi - When Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, she was unable to attend due to her detention by the military dictatorship in Myanmar (Burma).  An advocate for the democratization of the country, Aung San Suu Kyi won the 1990 general election by 82% but the military refused to hand over power.  Influenced by the peaceful politics of Ghandi and the Buddhist tradition to which she belongs, she has refused to leave the country whose freedom she fights for.  She has spent 14 of the last 20 years under house arrest, beginning in 1989 after she helped form the National League for Democracy.  She used the $1.3 million Nobel Peace Prize money to establish a health and education trust for the Burmese people.  You can learn more by getting involved with the US Campaign for Burma.

Quote: “It is often in the name of cultural integrity as well as social stability and national security that democratic reforms based on human rights are resisted by authoritarian governments.”

9. Rigoberta Menchú Tum – Rigoberta Menchú Tum is an indigenous Guatemalan of Mayan ancestry.  Having lived through the Guatemalan Civil War, which lasted 36 years (1960-1996), Menchú has been a vocal critic of the atrocities suffered by the indigenous population of the country though the bloody war, which cost over 200,000 lives and included more than 400 massacres.  While many of her family members enlisted in guerrilla armies, Menchú instead took a route of politics and activism to call attention to these crimes, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for her nonviolent approach.

Quote: “We have learned that change cannot come through war.  War is not a feasible tool to use in fighting against the oppression we face.  War has caused more problems.  We cannot embrace that path.”

Check back tomorrow for the most recent three women to win the Nobel Peace Prize, Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, and Wangari Maathai, concluding our short series.

Welcome to day two of our look at the women who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  Let’s get straight to the next three women on the countdown:

4 – 5. Mairead Corrigan & Betty Williams - In 1976 Mairead Corrigan & Betty Williams shared the Nobel Peace Prize for their combined efforts to bring peace to Northern Ireland.  These two women founded The Community For Peace People, organizing community members to unite across religious lines to cease the violent feud between Catholics and Protestants.

Quote: “Nonviolence is not just for an elite few, it is for everyone.  It is a way of life based on respect for each human person and for the environment.”  – Mairead Corrigan

Quote: “We have to create a world in which there are no unknown, hostile aliens at the other end of any missiles, and that is going to take a tremendous amount of sheer hard work.  The only force which can break down those barriers is the force of love, the force of truth…” - Betty Williams

6. Mother Teresa - A Roman Catholic nun, Mother Teresa was internationally renowned for her humanitarian efforts, particularly in India.  She ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying for more than 45 years.  At the time of her death in 1997 Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity was operating 610 missions in 123 countries, including schools, orphanages, children and family counseling programs, soup kitchens, and hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis.

Quote: “We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.”

Check back tomorrow for the next three women in Nobel Peace Prize history: Alva Myrdal, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Rigoberta Menchú Tum.

Yesterday was a big news day with Barack Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, marking a historic event if for no other reason besides average Americans paying attention to the award.  For once school kids are (almost?) as likely to be able to name a Peace Prize winner as they are to list off their favorite athletes.  I for one am ashamed at how little I know about the history of the prize, so I decided to do a little research.

The first Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 1901, and the award has been granted to 20 organizations and 96 individuals since then.  Of these 96 individuals, 12 have been women.  Over the next few days, let’s take a closer look at these women and their accomplishments.

1. Bertha von Suttner (Full name: Baroness Bertha Felicitas Sophie Freifrau von Suttner) – Baroness von Suttner was an Austrian author whose anti-war novel “Lay Down Your Arms!” published in 1889 led to her rise as a leading activist in the peace movement. She edited a journal named for her book from 1892 – 1899 and increased her international reknown. She was the sixth individual and first woman awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905.  During his live, Baroness von Suttner was personal friends with Alfred Nobel, who founded the Nobel Prizes in his will with the funds of his enormous fortune.

Quote:  “Seek not good from without: seek it within yourselves, or you will never find it.”

2. Jane Addams - The second woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Jane Addams was a highly educated upper class American woman in the early 1900s.  She was an outspoken pacifist during World War I and an adamant defender of immigrant’s rights.  In 1915 Ms. Addams helped found and lead the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the oldest women’s peace organization in the world.  She was awarded the prize in 1931.

Quote: “I do not believe that women are better than men. We have not wrecked railroads, nor corrupted legislature, nor done many unholy things that men have done; but then we must remember that we have not had the chance.”

3. Emily Greene Balch - The third woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, Emily Greene Balch was a colleague of Jane Addams her successor as president of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.  Ms. Balch was a full professor of economics and sociology at Wellesley College, but was let go on the grounds of her pacifist activities during WWI.  She was an international activist and active participant in the League of Nations.  Ms. Balch shared the Nobel Peace Prize of 1946 with YMCA leader John Mott.

Quote: “We are not asked to subscribe to any utopia or to believe in a perfect world just around the corner… We are asked to equip ourselves with courage, hope, readiness for hard work, and to cherish large and generous ideals.”

So there are the first three women awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  Be sure to check back tomorrow to learn about the next three women: Betty Williams, Mairead Corrigan, and Mother Teresa.

“I call myself a feminist. Isn’t that what you call someone who fights for women’s rights?
We all come from the same mother. That creates the basis for compassion.”

-Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama is a lineage of religious officials of the Gelug sect of Tibetan Buddhism. Since 1959, the Dalai Lama has been president of the Tibetan government-in-exile, or Central Tibetan Administration (CTA).

“In no society are women treated equally yet. I believe strongly that if women are not full participants in society, the society does not advance the way that it could. And if women are denied their rights, it affects children, families and the entire social structure.”

- Hillary Rodham Clinton

Hillary Rodham Clinton is the third female Secretary of State of the United States.  She has also served eight years as a New York senator and eight years as First Lady of the United States.  She has stated that “it is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as separate from human rights,” and is committed to improving the status of women worldwide.

“If women who were free to speak did not speak, we might as well say to the entire world,
‘No matter what you do to women, no one cares, just go right ahead.’”

- Mavis Leno

Mavis Leno, wife of TV comedian Jay Leno, on why she advocates for the rights of women in Afghanistan.

Shoutouts to Jezebel!