Category Archives: perSISTERS designs

Female Power Project, perSISTERS designs

DISIENTO for Sonia Sotomayor

DISIENTO (“I DISSENT”) for Sonya Sotomayor, a perSISTERS print in the Female Power Project

Sonia Maria Sotomayor (born June 25, 1954) is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 26, 2009 and has served since August 8, 2009. She is the third woman to hold the position. Sotomayor is the first woman of color, first Hispanic, and first Latina member of the Court. Sotomayor was born in The Bronx, New York City, to Puerto Rican-born parents. Sotomayor graduated with honors from Princeton University in 1976 and received her law degree from Yale Law School in 1979. –Wikipedia

DESIGN NOTE
I have been pondering a design for Sonia Sotomayor for several years. I was impressed with her compassion, drive, and brilliance after reading her 2013 memoir. However, it was not clear to me what words to use for her “power.” I had thought to use “LISTEN” but was disuaded by someone who used to work for her who told me that Sotomayor is notorious for interrupting people. Sigh. Then recently someone came in to my Female Power hut at Eastern Market and, looking at my RBG “DISSENT” button, told me, “I would love a button with Sotomayor on it that says ‘DISSENT.”’ (She was refering to the dissent quoted below.) “Especially if it were in Spanish!” Well, I know a good idea when I hear one, and this also solved the problem I’ve stated above. I’m starting with a perSISTER print, and a button will be coming. 

I found three ways to say “I dissent” in Spanish, and a lawyer friend helped me find the official judicial phrasing by looking up Supreme Court decisions published in Puerto Rico. 

I found out that the Supreme Court publishes their decisions using the typeface Century Schoolbook, so that is the face I used to typeset the dissent appearing behind the judge in this print. The text reads:

The court’s order is stunning. Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.

Last night, the court silently acquiesced in a state’s enactment of a law that flouts nearly 50 years of federal precedents. Today, the court belatedly explains that it declined to grant relief because of procedural complexities of the state’s own invention. Because the court’s failure to act rewards tactics designed to avoid judicial review and inflicts significant harm on the applicants and on women seeking abortions in Texas, I dissent.

In May 2021, the Texas legislature enacted SB8 (the act). The act, which took effect statewide at midnight on 1 September, makes it unlawful for physicians to perform abortions if they either detect cardiac activity in an embryo or fail to perform a test to detect such activity. This equates to a near-categorical ban on abortions beginning six weeks after a woman’s last menstrual period, before many women realize they are pregnant, and months before fetal viability. According to the applicants, who are abortion providers and advocates in Texas, the act immediately prohibits care for at least 85% of Texas abortion patients and will force many abortion clinics to close.

The act is clearly unconstitutional under existing precedents. The respondents do not even try to argue otherwise. Nor could they: no federal appellate court has upheld such a comprehensive prohibition on abortions before viability under current law.

The Texas legislature was well aware of this binding precedent. To circumvent it, the legislature took the extraordinary step of enlisting private citizens to do what the state could not. The act authorizes any private citizen to file a lawsuit against any person who provides an abortion in violation of the act, “aids or abets” such an abortion (including by paying for it) regardless of whether they know the abortion is prohibited under the act, or even intends to engage in such conduct. Courts are required to enjoin the defendant from engaging in these actions in the future and to award the private-citizen plaintiff at least $10,000 in “statutory damages” for each forbidden abortion performed or aided by the defendant. In effect, the Texas legislature has deputized the state’s citizens as bounty hunters, offering them cash prizes for civilly prosecuting their neighbors’ medical procedures.

The legislature fashioned this scheme because federal constitutional challenges to state laws ordinarily are brought against state officers who are in charge of enforcing. By prohibiting state officers from enforcing the act directly and relying instead on citizen bounty hunters, the legislature sought to make it more complicated for federal courts to enjoin the act on a statewide basis.

Taken together, the act is a breathtaking act of defiance—of the constitution, of this court’s precedents, and of the rights of women seeking abortions throughout Texas. But over six weeks after the applicants filed suit to prevent the act from taking effect, a fifth circuit panel abruptly stayed all proceedings before the district court and vacated a preliminary injunction hearing that was scheduled to begin on Monday. The applicants requested emergency relief from this court, but the court said nothing. The act took effect at midnight last night.

From Justice Sotomayor’s dissent in Whole Woman’s Health et al v Austin Reeve Jackson, Judge, et al, on application for injunctive relief. She was joined by Justices Breyer and Kagan. This text has been lightly edited to remove some legal citations. This is quoted directly from the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/02/sonia-sotomayor-dissent-texas-abortion-ban-law-supreme-court

This dissent, this case, this new “originalist” Supreme Court, is about much more than denying reproductive rights for women. The historian, Heather Cox Richardson, points out in her letter of September 3, 2021,  “A state has undermined the power of the federal government to protect civil rights. It has given individuals who disagree with one particular right the power to take it away from their neighbors. But make no mistake: there is no reason that this mechanism couldn’t be used to undermine much of the civil rights legislation of the post–World War II years.”

This print was published in September 2021.

FURTHER SOURCES
A good summary of her legal career so far:
“Sonia Sotomayor.” Oyez, www.oyez.org/justices/sonia_sotomayor. Accessed 24 Sep. 2021.

Memoir: My Beloved World, 2013.

The image of Sotomayor in this artwork is based on a photograph © Elena Seibert. The photographer does not have any responsibility for the message of this print.

Female Power Project, perSISTERS designs

Act Like People Matter for Frances Perkins

ACT LIKE PEOPLE MATTER for Frances Perkins, a perSISTERS print in the Female Power Project

Frances Perkins (born Fannie Coralie Perkins; April 10, 1880–May 14, 1965) was an American workers-rights advocate who served as the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, the longest serving in that position. She made history as the first woman to serve in any presidential U.S. Cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her longtime friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped make labor issues important in the emerging New Deal coalition. She was one of two Roosevelt cabinet members to remain in office for his entire presidency which took place during the depths of the Great Depression and World War II.

Her most important role came in developing a policy for Social Security in 1935. She also helped form governmental policy for working with labor unions, although the union leaders distrusted her. Her Labor Department helped to alleviate strikes by way of the United States Conciliation Service. –Wikipedia

Like many people at the time, Perkins was moved to work even harder for workers’ rights after the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory fire of 1911. She witnessed the fire herself because she had been at lunch with a friend nearby. She watched in horror as people threw themselve out of windows to die on the pavement to avoid perishing in the fire. After the fire she worked as a workplace inspector for the State of New York.  Many of the workplace safety laws of New York became the blueprint for Federal safety laws.

From Wikipedia:  “The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history.The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers—123 women and girls and 23 men—who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, or falling or jumping to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Italian or Jewish immigrant women and girls aged 14 to 23…. Because the doors to the stairwells and exits were locked—a common practice at the time to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft—many of the workers could not escape from the burning building and jumped from the high windows. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union.”

According to the biography by Kirstin Downey, Frances only accepted the post of Labor Secretary once Roosevelt agreed to back her in her goals to enact the Federal initiatives she had sketched out. She brought a list to her meeting with the recently elected President. These were: general relief from the unemployment crisis through a temporary public works program; prohibiting child labor; reduction in working hours; a minimum wage; worker’s compensation for workplace injury; workplace safety regulations; national unemployment insurance; and an old age pension (Social Security). These goals seemed foolishly ambitious at the time, but Frances had plans for how to get nay-sayers to collaborate. She wanted FDR’s agreement that she could at least study how these policies could work while avoiding the worst pitfalls.  “Are you sure you want this done, because you don’t want me for Secretary of Labor if you don’t want these things done.” He agreed. Through her amazing social skills and canny understanding of the powerful men around her, she did it. She did those things. FDR had faith in her, amazingly. The misogyny she had to deal with was absolutely monumental, and the pressure made it impossible for FDR to keep supporting her later on, and her authority and power was undermined through countless hurtful things. Still, lifted up by a foundation of Christian faith—a radical love for humanity—she rallied the powerful to her cause and she did those things.

DESIGN NOTE I got some inspiration from 1930s graphic design. The background image is from a newspaper article from the NY Evening Telegram of March 27th, 1911. It recounts the heroism of Fannie Lansner, who was credited with saving many lives before she jumped to her death from the Triangle Factory. This page is overlaid with the circle and triangle logo of the notorious factory. The colors in this design are inspired by paint colors of the houses of New England, because Perkins was from Maine.

This print was published in September 2021.

SOURCES
The photo of Frances Perkins, circa 1938, from the National Archives, found here: https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/personal-story/frances-perkins

The Woman Behind the New Deal, by Kirstin Downey, 2009.

https://francesperkinscenter.org/life-new/

Hear Perkins’ voice here: http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/primary/lectures/FrancesPerkinsLecture.html

Newspaper image from here: http://open-archive.rememberthetrianglefire.org/heroic-young-forewoman/

Female Power Project, perSISTERS designs

Respect for Aretha Franklin

RESPECT for Aretha Franklin, a perSISTERS print in the Female Power Project

Aretha Louise Franklin (March 25, 1942 – August 16, 2018) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. She is called “Queen of Soul”. In 2010, Rolling Stone magazine ranked her number one on its list of the “100 Greatest Singers of All Time” and number nine on its list of “100 Greatest Artists of All Time”. Franklin began her career as a child, singing gospel at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit where her father was a minister.

At the age of 18, she embarked on a secular music career as a recording artist for Columbia Records. While her career did not immediately flourish, she found acclaim and commercial success once she signed with Atlantic Records in 1966. Her commercial hits such as “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)”, “Respect”, “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”, “Chain of Fools”, “Think” and “I Say a Little Prayer” propelled her past her musical peers. Franklin recorded 112 charted singles on Billboard, including 77 Hot 100 entries, 17 top-ten pop singles, 100 R&B entries, and 20 number-one R&B singles. She won 18 Grammy Awards,[3] including the first eight awards given for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance (1968–1975) and a Grammy Awards Living Legend honor and Lifetime Achievement Award. Franklin is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 75 million records worldwide. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1987, she became the first female performer to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She also was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005 and into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2012. The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2019 awarded Franklin a posthumous special citation “for her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades”. In 2020, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
—Adapted from Wikipedia

When Aretha died, so many excellent writers paid tribute. I am going to lazily quote them here with some links where you can see her perform.

“Franklin’s 76 years on Earth bookended a grand arc of tumult, letdowns, progress, setbacks, terror, and hope in American history. That in itself might not be a remarkable feat so much as a reminder that all black people older than 53 have seen and lived through hell. But Aretha—and that first name is sufficient, as it was in black churches and parlors for half a century—was an architect of a movement as much as a witness to it. She toured with the actors Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier to raise money for King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1967, when the organization was in dire financial straits and was attempting to embark on a Poor People’s Campaign. She was an activist who strained to keep a movement going even after King’s assassination, and who worked to support the Black Panthers and attempted to post bail to free the activist Angela Davis from jail. She loved black people. In this country, that simple fact was radical enough.”

“At her zenith, her main power was in transformation, in taking less potent songs and breathing fire into them. Through sheer force of will, she transformed Otis Redding’s “Respect” from a pleading ballad to a civil-rights staple, a slogan for struggles at the intersection of blackness and womanhood”

“Soul was and is a revolutionary art, and Aretha [the “Queen of soul”] belongs in the broader conversation about this country’s revolutionary heroes with any provocateur or patriot who ever lived.”
—Vann R. Newkirk II
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/08/aretha-franklins-revolution/567715/

“More controversially, in 1971 she publicly offered to pay bail for the black power figurehead and Communist party member Angela Davis, who had been charged with conspiracy, kidnapping and murder for her alleged role in a courtroom escape that had turned into a shootout with the police. “Angela Davis must go free,” Aretha said. “I know you got to disturb the peace when you can’t get no peace.””
—Sean O’Hagan
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/aug/19/aretha-franklin-life-of-heartbreak-heroism-hope

“This was the promise of soul: that pain granted depth, and that one was never alone but accompanied by a vibrant community that had crossed too many bridges in order to survive. Franklin was the queen not only of soul music but of soul as a concept, because her great subject was the exceeding of limits. Her willingness to extend her own vocal technique, to venture beyond herself, to strain to implausible heights, and revive songs that seemed to be over—all these strategies could look and sound like grace. She knew that we would need it.”
—Emily Lordi
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/aretha-franklins-astonishing-dr-feelgood

“Franklin sang with a power and conviction that healed. She transformed pain—both others’ and her own—into jubilation.”

““Respect,” originally an Otis Redding song, is best-known as an Aretha anthem. The song became an unofficial rallying cry for both the civil-rights movement and women’s liberation, a powerful addition to the artistic arsenals of both efforts. Franklin’s singing made shared demands impossible to ignore.”
—Hannah Giorgis
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/08/aretha-franklin-natural-woman/567697/

“Franklin has won eighteen Grammy awards, sold tens of millions of records, and is generally acknowledged to be the greatest singer in the history of postwar popular music. “

“What distinguishes her is not merely the breadth of her catalogue or the cataract force of her vocal instrument; it’s her musical intelligence, her way of singing behind the beat, of spraying a wash of notes over a single word or syllable, of constructing, moment by moment, the emotional power of a three-minute song. “Respect” is as precise an artifact as a Ming vase.”

“When I e-mailed President Obama about Aretha Franklin and that night, he wasn’t reticent in his reply. “Nobody embodies more fully the connection between the African-American spiritual, the blues, R. & B., rock and roll—the way that hardship and sorrow were transformed into something full of beauty and vitality and hope,” he wrote back, through his press secretary. “American history wells up when Aretha sings. That’s why, when she sits down at a piano and sings ‘A Natural Woman,’ she can move me to tears—the same way that Ray Charles’s version of ‘America the Beautiful’ will always be in my view the most patriotic piece of music ever performed—because it captures the fullness of the American experience, the view from the bottom as well as the top, the good and the bad, and the possibility of synthesis, reconciliation, transcendence.”

‘ “Aretha gets offended when she thinks you think you’re getting over on her,” Tavis Smiley told me. “It’s hard to know why that line gets blurred from time to time, between making people respect you and self-sabotage. But don’t ever underestimate the power of the personal. ‘Respect’ is not just a song to Aretha. It’s the mantra for her life.” ‘
—David Remnick
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/04/aretha-franklins-american-soul

Video

Performing “Respect” in 1967
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcGjZHvD5q4

Aretha sings “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman” at the Kennedy Center honors and President Obama sheds a tear while Carole King flips out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT4aRd-hCqQ

Amazing Grace, a documentary released in 2019 presenting the live recording of Aretha Franklin’s album Amazing Grace at The New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts, Los Angeles in January 1972. Available on Amazon, Hulu, etc. This is an article about the film in Vanity Fair: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/04/aretha-franklin-documentary-amazing-grace-making-of-true-story

This print was published in August 2021.