SHE features 18 thematically-related songs from diverse genres, that deal with the deepest issues of humanity and cast a net of beauty that reveals and inspires. The different musical styles give different options and expand reach. Like Norah Jones's work, SHE does not pander to the audience. SHE reflects the highest artistic freedom as it moves through subjects basic to women's lives.

Each genre included-pop, jazz, blues, classical pop, country, easy listening, folk rock, folk, and cowgirl choral-contains gems that renew the genres and illuminate their power. The songs and performances do what all high art does-bring us to higher levels.

American roots music is well represented in SHE because of the composer's wide-ranging background which also includes classical music.

Any fine artist writes, sings, and plays from the heart and hopes for the best. SHE, A Tapestry of Women's Lives walks the path of fine musicianship. SHE is not about noise, whistles or sirens, but about raising our planet's cultural level.

This lively collection talks about:

• Money and how it makes women free (Ain't it the truth!) Women are poorer than men in the U.S. by 24 cents per dollar, job-wise.
• Nurturing healthy selves, perfect for music therapy.
• Getting out of the Intern Girl-Exploitive Older Man Trap
• Avoiding or escaping Don Juans
• Schools for Husbands (Les Ecoles des Maris, to rephrase Molière)
• Single Moms
• Jealousy from other women
• Starting over at 50 after your husband has divorced you and run off with a Trophy Wife
• Women's sports songs in tennis, winter sports, golf, gymnastics, track and field
• Love and spirituality, by which we live or we don't live at all
• Celebrating women's strengths and great capacity for good
  

Let's look at the lyrics for the collection's first song:

Money Makes A Woman Free!

With one eye on the public
And one eye on me
I try to see if there's a way
To be a woman and be free.

But a woman's shoes they pinch her
Her smile destroys her soul
If a woman cannot shout and walk about
A woman is not whole.

So I look around at the way things are
At all there is to see
Take my advice, don't just be nice
'Cause it's money makes a woman free.

Remember when you were a little girl
They told you lots of lies
They said "Be nice, like sugar and spice
Or you'll give us a case of hives."

But then you found when you grew up
That if you didn't make a fuss
They'd push you about till you got some clout
And then you could strut your stuff.
Repeat first three verses.

The women's sports song cycle, "Our Women Are Strong"-#s 13-17-shines with lofty luster in light of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, 9/11, and the war in Iraq. These defining events were framed by Shirin Ebadi's 2003 Nobel Peace Prize. Ebadi is a human rights attorney from Iran who, at the risk of her life, has defended the rights of women and children. In November 2009, Iran's rulers closed Dr. Ebadi's U.N.-sponsored Center for the Defense of Human Rights. They forced her out of the country and tried to permanently remove her Nobel Peace Prize, but did not succeed in getting rid of this great honor. They also arrested Faezeh Hashimi, a women's sports activist who had brought Iranian women into the Olympics. The battle over human rights and intellectual freedom continues in Iran, led by the women, and they are not giving up. Dr. Ebadi keeps challenging the government with speeches given outside her nation.

These events swirling out of the Middle East have swept human rights for all women center stage, while the power soaring through this cycle of women's sports songs celebrating women's strength, intelligence and independence, makes them freedom songs for the world!

You can say the Taliban, like a hot knife through butter, showed how ugly sexism really is. It was as if a big light from heaven shone right down on the Taliban, and proclaimed "This is woman-hating, and it leads to terrorizing innocent women and children. It must end."

We must get it through our heads that if we don't kill woman-hating, it will surely kill us. In our interconnected world, it is stark, raving true that we cannot continue to oppress women and have a living planet. Full human rights for women is a sufficient condition for saving Planet Earth, for many reasons. This theme is underlined in the film Osama created by Afghan director Siddiq Barmak.

The tennis part of this song cycle was first performed by Lou de la Rosa's mixed chorus at Abraham Lincoln High School, a magnet arts school in San Jose, a school at which Dr. McDowell once taught English. "Our Women Are Strong" makes mincemeat of the idea that women are lesser beings-less intelligent, less dynamic, forceful, creative. To assert the fact that women are strong nullifies the core values in societies making claims of women's inferiority. It shakes their very foundations.

Once women have full citizenship worldwide, a cause for which the United Nations has long been fighting, our planet's atmosphere will improve. Women everywhere must stop saying "We accept buck-private status." Such statements are life sentences.

Freedom is a constant struggle. Truth is a mighty weapon. Imagine a world in which women have 50 percent of everything including music programs. Move over Brahams, G. Ligeti, Lionel Hampton, Bob Dylan. Being a groupie is like pouring a pail of garbage over one's head. Bessie Smith said, "I'm used to playin' lead."

Zahra Mostafavi—oldest daughter of the Ayatollah Khomeini and Professor of Islamic Philosophy at the University of Tehran, said "There should be a revolution in the home…[Women] must rebel against some men." (Quoted by Jan Goodwin, The Price of Honor, 2003.) Her remark lines up with SHE's "There's Nothing I Like Better Than a Man Who's Clean." This song identifies the pressing need for Schools for Husbands. ("Come on guys, wash those dishes, move those mops, stay sober, and don't leave slop.")

Dr. Fatima al-Abdali—a Kuwaiti environmental engineer at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, journalist and feminist, said, "Men know we are superior in many ways and don't want us at the forefront." Consult internet: "Daily Star Staff 7/5/03."

Benazir Bhutto, murdered Prime Minister of Pakistan—said women "whether in San Jose or Kabul or Baghdad must refuse to accept traditional roles and traditional constraints," adding that the bigotry of religious fanatics and terrorists are women's biggest obstacle. (13th YWCA Professional Women's Luncheon in San Jose, November 18, 2003)

SHE describes the 12 vocalists-soloists and choral voices-in a 32-page booklet that is a mini-encyclopedia. The booklet sums up women's situations worldwide. It and the CD are useful tools for discussions in women's studies, women's music, history, sociology, psychology, psychiatry, music therapy, social work, political science, government, economics, literature, art, etc.

The booklet gives invaluable information on the vocalists and studios that have made this vanguard album possible. Many people have become too complacent on women's issues, treating women like dead ducks. Yet there's so much to be done. One instance: where is the social security pay-in option for homemakers and unpaid caretakers on the IRS tax form? SHE is trying to wake people up to the need to create new consciences for and about women, with full human rights worldwide.

What are we going to do about the rise in slavery for women in Cambodia, Thailand, Russia, Afghanistan, America, Africa, etc.? What about women and children being sold into brothels? What about India's recent export-bride burning? What about forced marriages, honor killings, harems, Female Genital Mutilation in the Middle East, Africa, the United States and elsewhere?

What about the head scarf controversy in France? What about the Islamic Legal Code — the Sharia — so prejudiced against women it has inspired protests worldwide? Who would want to wear hot, scratchy burkas, that make you blind and look like gas masks with skirts? Also what do we humans do when we get to the last scapegoat and she/he is exonerated?

Silicon Valley should become deeply involved in women's human rights. SHE's musical revues offer an opportunity of great value to those wishing to participate.

The graphic design firm in charge of the magical art work for SHE is Kane & Associates, ably assisted by Winona Avila, set designer in San Jose.

CD/booklet price: $18.00.
California tax: $1.49. Postage and handling-$5.00.

A tee-shirt in forest green is available in sizes S M L XL to 5XL, featuring SHE's opening song in caps-MONEY MAKES A WOMAN FREE! Also available in the same sizes is a tee-shirt in white with black script letters and red underline featuring the song title "There's Nothing I Like Better Than a Man Who's Clean." Grunge is gone with the wind for guys.

Both tee-shirts are made of preshrunk cotton. Price: $19.95 California tax: $1.65. Shipping & Handling: $5.95. These are custom orders. Express mail in U.S. $20.00. $25 if shipped abroad.

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