A L O H A
Play Ball !
"You can discover
more about a person
in an hour of play
than in a year
of conversation."
Plato
" Champions
keep playing
until they get it
right."
Billie Jean King
"Somewhere
behind the athlete you've become
and the hours of
practice
and the coaches who have pushed you
is a little girl
who fell
in love with the game
and never looked back...
play for her. "
Mia Hamm
(born on March 17, 1972)
Congresswoman Patsy T. Mink (left),
Mme. Nguyen Thi Binh, Foreign
Minister
of South Vietnam
(center),
and Congresswoman Bella Abzug (right)
meeting outside of
Paris, France,
April 21, 1972.
Library of Congress,
Patsy T. Mink
Papers, Manuscript Division.
Patsy Matsu Takemoto was born
1927, Dec. 6 at Paia
on the island of Maui
She attended Maui High School
and in her Junior year, Patsy won her first
of many elections
to become student
body president.
Unremarkable today, but Patsy was,
"the only female who had ever showed ambition
for student office in the school's history,
something that was unheard
of at the time. . ."
Not to mention that
". . . the month before the election,
Honolulu was
attacked by Japan.
As a consequence, most of the student body
was
uncomfortable with anything
that was Japanese-oriented. "
Nevertheless, she won a tight election,
graduating in 1944
as class valedictorian.
" Miss Takemoto moved to Honolulu
where she attended
the University of Hawaii at Mānoa.
My Alma Mater.
She later transferred
to the University of Nebraska
where she once again faced discrimination.
policy whereby students of color
were forced to live in different dormitories
from the white
students. This annoyed Mink,
and she organized and created a coalition . . .
her coalition successfully lobbied
to end the university's segregation policies. "
Patsy moved back to Honolulu
to prepare for medical school.
She received bachelor's degrees in zoology
and chemistry
from UH.
However in 1948,
none of the twenty
medical schools
to which she applied would accept women.
A disappointed Takemoto decided
the best way to force medical schools
to accept women would
be through
the judicial process.
She set her sights on law school
and was admitted to the
University of Chicago Law School,
which educated women from its inception in 1902.
(She was not the only woman in the class.)
Miss Takemoto obtained her
juris doctor degree
in 1951. And one thing more;
it was at law school that Miss Takemoto
met hydrologist John Mink (1924–2005),
who was to become her husband
and lifelong partner.
Patsy Mink served in our Hawaii legislature,
(Territorial as well as after Statehood)
as well as the US Congress,
and died here at home in Honolulu
on Sept. 28
2002.
(Then-)Representative,
current Hawaii Governor,
Neil Abercrombie, said of her:
‘She never thought for a
moment
of not working with people
who didn’t agree with her
ideologically.
40 years ago this week,
on JUNE 23, 1972,
a portion of the Educational Amendments
enacted by our US Congress included
Title IX,
just 37 words written by Patsy Mink,
stating that:
" No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from
participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any
education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance- "
Congress named the Title IX Amendment
of the Higher Education Act
the "Patsy T. Mink
Equal Opportunity in Education Act".
Since that time,
participation in school sports
has INCREASED for girls 90%,
as you might expect,
but participation among boys
has increased too.
When I was in elementary school,
sports were a boy thing.
Girls watched,
or played other games.
A girl who did play sports
was called a "Tom Boy."
[The tribulations of "Sissy Boys"
will be discussed at a later time]
When I see Carissa Moore surf,
WNBA athletes shoot 3 pointers,
or happy young girls
REALLY competing
at sports they love. . .
when I see young women
who are police officers, or in military service
and who are not the EXCEPTIONS
in build & temperament
that the pioneers of my day
HAD to be
to break into those fields,
I think of Patsy Takemoto
all those years ago,
way out in the country
on Maui.
Gratitude
to all the women
and men
who opened doors!
Now that we have all
played in the sunshine,
and won championships
and gold medals,
we will never send our daughters
back inside again.
Isn't that GREAT!
Thanks for looking in-
Chime in with a comment
Warmly, cloudia
