A man won the 2002 “Medal for Equality and Justice” from the Iowa Commission on the Status of Women. The Reverend Carlos Jayne, the state’s leading anti-gambling lobbyist, serves as coordinator for the “Iowa Human Needs Advocates” and he says women are the “strongest force” he works with.Jayne says women know injustice because they’ve lived through it, and know of the “collective power” needed to overcome it. Also this weekend, four women were inducted into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame. Former Attorney General Bonnie Campbell, the 1994 Democrat candidate for Governor who went on to head the U-S Violence Against Women office, was among those honored.Campbell says of all the things she had a chance to do in public life, focusing on stopping violence against women will always be the most meaningful because women can’t enjoy the fruits of freedom if they live in fear.Campbell says since September 11th, she’s struggled to understand what motivates the terrorists. She says it’s not democracy which motivates such fundamentalism, it’s fear of what equality for women will do to the status of men. Eighty-five-year-old Alice Yost Jordan of Des Moines, an internationally known music composer, was also inducted into the Hall of Fame. Shirley Ruedy, author of the “Cancer Update” column in the Cedar Rapids Gazette, was honored, too. Ruedy has twice been diagnosed with breast cancer. She says she couldn’t have envisioned readers telling her she had saved their lives because of what she had written.Former U-N-I vice president Sue Folon, who died of cancer in 1998, was also inducted in the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame. Her long-time friend, Patricia Geadelmann, spoke on behalf of Folon’s family and friends.The Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame was established in 1975 to recognize women who’ve helped shape the course of the state.
