Helen Stoll, Portland anti-prostitution activist

Got something to share with the reading public that isn't an action but should be read?

Moderators: delphyne, oneangrygirl, deedle, sam

Helen Stoll, Portland anti-prostitution activist

Postby sam » Tue May 06, 2008 8:59 am

Lately I've been on a kick about how the history of women's work against prostitution gets ignored or intentionally disappeared by men. An anti-porn lawyer friend who lives in the Hollywood neighborhood told me about how she knew Helen Stoll and gave me the following obituary from the neighborhood newsletter. -sam

Helen Stoll, 1924-2008

by Lee Perlman

Helen Stoll, co-owner of the Norm Stoll Dance Studio and a Hollywood neighborhood activist for nearly 60 years, succumbed to stomach cancer on April 14. She was 83 years old.

Norman and Helen Stoll operated their dance studio from a variety of locations in Hollywood starting in the late 1940s. For nearly all of that time, they were active members of both the Hollywood Boosters and, later, of the Hollywood Neighborhood Association.

Helen, in particular, was a fierce crusader against the drugs and prostitution in the area. She was motivated by the negative effects of these activities on both the neighborhood and the purveyors of the trade. On one occasion, after advising a prostitute about alternatives available to her, Stoll was attacked in her own parking lot by the woman's pimp.

According to her daughter-in-law, Central Northeast Neighbors executive director Alison Stoll, Helen knew in December that her cancer was almost certainly terminal. However, she withheld this information from friends, not wishing to upset them. She attended the Boosters February meeting and said that flowers the Boosters had sent her had helped her have "a second bloom."

"She was extremely dedicated to the Hollywood area, and to the Hollywood Boosters, for many years," longtime Booster and former chair Paul Clark told The Star. "she was a highly visible and vocal advocate for the police, public safety and anti-crime activities. She and Norm were a voice for Hollywood heard throughout the city. She will be missed by many."
"Your orgasm can no longer dictate my oppression"

Trisha Baptie
sam
chaotic good
 
Posts: 4391
Joined: Thu Dec 30, 2004 12:54 am

Re: Helen Stoll, Portland anti-prostitution activist

Postby MaggieH » Wed May 07, 2008 2:33 pm

The terrible loss of another precious woman activist that is.

sam wrote:Lately I've been on a kick about how the history of women's work against prostitution gets ignored or intentionally disappeared by men.


Ignored or intentionally disappeared by men? To most of them, women are not even human beings. And history is The history of men! :x
"The assumption that "most women are innately heterosexual'' stands as a theoretical and political stumbling block for many women. It remains a tenable assumption, partly because lesbian existence has been written out of history or catalogued under disease;. . . partly because to acknowledge that for women heterosexuality may not be a "preference" at all but something that has had to be imposed, managed, organized, propagandized and maintained by force is an immense step to take if you consider yourself freely and "innately" heterosexual. Yet the failure to examine heterosexuality as an institution is like failing to admit that the economic system called capitalism or the caste system of racism is maintained by a variety of forces, including both physical violence and false consciousness. . ."
-- Adrienne Rich, in Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence: http://www.terry.uga.edu/~dawndba/4500compulsoryhet.htm

“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.” ~ Alice Walker
MaggieH
antiporn star
 
Posts: 1817
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2007 9:36 am


Return to essays, articles, rants for public view

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 45 guests

cron