Inspirational women

[naicepineapple]

Off the back of another thread, didn't want to derail. Can we have a thread celebrating truly inspirational women from history to modern day. They can be well known or people only personally known to you.

I'll start with Rosa Parks, she lived from 1913-2005 and was an American civil rights activist who refused to give up her bus seat to a white person.
The First Lady of civil rights and the mother of the freedom movement.

I always tell my Brownies about Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin , because she grew up in Wendover, which is within their world & comprehension. Marvellous woman

Dame Claire Bertschinger -- completed nurse training despite severe dyslexia, worked with the international Red Cross (thanks to her dual nationality, few British nurses could work with the international branch). Media coverage of her work during the famine in Ethiopia inspired Band Aid.

Now works at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine as the director of the Diploma of Tropical Nursing, which trains nurses and midwives to work in tropical settings.

"I'll start with Rosa Parks, she lived from 1913-2005 and was an American civil rights activist who refused to give up her bus seat to a white person."

She was picked as a good publicity stunt, because the original Black Woman who did that was a Teenager and Rosa Parks looked more Middle class/acceptable/respectable.

So really it should be Claudette Colvin. She was a pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement.

My issue with the whole" Inspirational women" thing is that Women in adversity are generally inspirational.

Read any War/Famine/concentration camp/severe poverty/slavery accounts and the Women's reactions/getting through it are inspiring.

Emily Davies & others whose work paved the way for women to access higher education, rather than being allowed to sit at the back of lectures if a male academic would permit it.....or, attend & study for years but then never actually be awarded a degree. Naicepineapple, your grandma sounds right up my street, thank goodness there have been amazing women like that around throughout the last century 💪🏻

Dame Ellen McArthur

I didn't know that about Rosa Parks, my mistake.

*My issue with the whole" Inspirational women" thing is that Women in adversity are generally inspirational.

Read any War/Famine/concentration camp/severe poverty/slavery accounts and the Women's reactions/getting through it are inspiring.*

Of course they are and I think they should be celebrated.

Nancy Wake.

French resistance hero who led 7000 maquis fighters against enemies in France.

Nicknamed "The White Mouse" by the Gestapo who put a price of 5 million francs on her head.

Kathrine Switzer....... women were not allowed to run marathons. So in the 60's she dressed as a man and ran the Boston marathon!! Course Marshall's noticed and tried to pull her off the course but all the MEN running crowded in to stop them and she completed the marathon!!!

How amazing!!

I was honoured to run London marathon this year and she was there to run it too!

Thanks Kathrine for literally paving the way for women's running

Irena Sendler.

What about Ruth Vader Ginsburg - not herself in adversity but standing up against the tide (against Trump etc).

Mary Seacole the British-Jamaican business woman and nurse who set up the "British Hotel" behind the lines during the Crimean War. Florence got all the good press but this lady did the real work.

Mrs Wilson. You won't have heard of her and I only spent half an hour in her company 30-ish years ago but she taught me so many life lessons in that brief time and changed for ever how I perceive both women and the elderly. She was one of the female pilots who served in the Air Transport Auxiliary during the second world war. Incredible women with balls of steel (like countless others).

Mary Seacole, the original " Lady of the Lamp " for her nursing and physician skills during the Crimean war overcoming deep prejudice because she was not only female but Black as well.

Great minds StepAway

Malala yousefasi (sp?) incredible young woman who will continue to do great things.

I knew I shouldn't have bothered posting on here.

Why?

Pragna Patel, Director of Southall Black Sisters, a real gamechanging organisation. You can listen to an interview with Pragna Patel on the British Library website here.

RedRose we can celebrate both! We don't have to choose one woman!

Have we had Senator Elizabeth Warren yet? Nevertheless she persisted

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson - Dr and suffragist. First woman to qualify in Britain as a physician and surgeon, the co-founder of the first hospital staffed by women, the first dean of a British medical school, the first woman in Britain to be elected to a school board and the first female mayor and magistrate in Britain.

Ada Lovelace - mathematician and the first ever computer programmer, known for her work with Charles Babbage

"Helen" who runs the local women's aid, and "Anne" who runs a shelter for women in London. Both give so much of themselves, not just to the local families but to national and international work on supporting trafficked women and tackling FGM.

I dont know if ive spelt this correctly, isobel goldschmidt. She was a teacher in nazi germany who tried every way possible to keep the education of jewish children going when it was slowly banned. The children she managed to save through arranging their safe transit elsewhere have led lives that they have chosen.

Jayaben Desai. My beloved aunt (who also belongs on this thread as the greatest inspiration a girl could have) had a huge poster of her in her living room when I was growing up. She was a tiny woman, an immigrant from Gujarat via Tanzania, working in a low-paid job, and she led one of the most significant strikes of the 1970s, the Grunwick dispute.

"You don't say 'no' to Mrs Desai."

My boss had faith in me and was just there for me. I cant thank her enough.