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Marketing and University Communication UW-Green Bay, CL 815 2420 Nicolet Drive Green Bay, WI 54311-7001 (920) 465-2626 E-mail: hildebrs@uwgb.edu Last update: 10/1/07 |
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In
the News Archive - Year:
March 11, 2004 Monologue connects youth with women's history By Anna Krejci During the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay's 9th Annual Women's Recognition
Luncheon, Jane Curry, an author and storyteller who has performed internationally,
presented, "Nice Girls Don't Sweat."
Curry assumed the role of a 1960s professional basketball player on
the All-American Red Heads team, a team of women who dyed their hair red
and competed with men's teams across the nation. The team existed from
the 1930s to mid-1980s.
Curry compared the All-American Red Heads to the Globetrotters in that
they were expected to perform as well as play a basketball game. They
were required to play in make-up and during breaks in the games they sold
and autographed programs. " ... but in between, we played a basketball
game," Curry said in her monologue as Sammy Kay Knight, a character Curry
created as a member of the All-American Red Heads.
In the monologue, Curry's character sat in a living room setting, and
flipped through the pages of a scrap book. The book's contents were projected
onto a screen for the audience to see.
One slide projected a newspaper article that appeared in a London paper
during a 1930s Olympics. A photograph captured a line of women racing
on a track with wind blowing back their hair. The headline read, "Fastest
Woman in the World is an Expert Cook." Curry's character read from the
article, "Outside of racing, housework is her greatest love," sparking
laughter from the crowd.
Curry's character wondered why one never saw a headline that read, "Fastest
man in the world can barely boil water."
By incorporating women's history into a monologue, Curry said she wants
youth to compare their experiences to those of older generations —
those whose height of athleticism was participating in a walking club
and others whose decisions to ride a bicycle were once looked at as jeopardizing
their ability to give birth.
"I really want younger people to see themselves as part of the story,"
she said. Curry is motivated to perform the monologue to remind her audience
of the struggles women overcame to secure rights and to encourage them
to guard those rights that she believes could be removed.
At the beginning the program, a student and faculty member were awarded
Women of the Year Awards.
Graduating senior Kristin Murphy won the student award. She will graduate
with degrees in Environmental Policy and Planning and Public Administration.
Murphy swam on the school's swim team and was recognized as a successful
student who helped fellow classmates succeed. The program also recognized
that she made her accomplishment despite having a hearing impairment.
Murphy related to Curry's monologue.
"Girls and guys always have played by different rules and it's good
she's bringing awareness to it and that we shouldn't have to do that anymore,"
Murphy said.
"Athletics have always been an important part in my life and that's
what motivates me to do as well as I have been doing," academically and
athletically," she said.
Kim Nielsen, a professor of history and women's studies, received the
faculty award. She was recognized for writing two books; "Un-American
Womanhood" and "The Radical Lives of Helen Keller."
Nielsen said Curry's monologue is memorable because of "the way she
used humor to look at history."
The Office of Student Life, the Student Government Association, Good
Times Programming, and the Women's Studies academic program sponsored
the program.
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