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've done a lot of reading around Social History and the Merchants/Rich people's Wives, who were instrumental about bringing about Prison/Hospital/Workhouse/Poverty Reforms and moving towards a Welfare State.

The blue print of our Welfare State was written by a Woman, Beatrice Webb (née Potter).

I was looking up names for my French Bulldog (the breed originates from Nottingham). So I looked up Famous Women from Nottingham. The Women did a lot of firsts, soup kitchens for refugees, first Women's refuge and lots more. They were life savers. Around the Country, Women were the instigators of Social change.

We had all these Women, across the U.K, some in their small ways pushing us towards the Society that we know today.

Rosa Parks was amazing, and so much more than the bus boycott for which she became famous. She was secretary of the NAACP and its chief investigator for sexual violence against black women long before the bus incident.

Your grandmother sounds truly inspirational op.

Condolences to you. X

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

Exactly. I don't have anyone to add. Precisely because most inspirational women don't find fame.

And what's really useful is the added paragraphs saying exactly who they were and what they did. For those of us who don't know.

Wonderful thread.

Mairi Chisolm and Elsie Knocker. The only women to live and work on the frontline Belgian trenches during WW1, attending the soldiers wounds and doing their own fundraising for supplies.

Chris Tchaikovsky, penal reformer and founder of Women In Prison. (Also one of the most charismatic individuals I ever met.)

Also regarding the bus boycott, Rosa Parks made a calculated decision- "I would have to know for once and for all what rights I had as a human being". She was arrested, lost her job, suffered severe hardship as a result. It was an incredibly brave thing to do, and her being the 'respectable' face of the subsequent boycott doesn't diminish that. Also she continued her civil rights campaigning long after that, particularly housing and prison issues. I found the earlier post incredibly dismissive.

Irish racecar driver Rosemary Smith. Oldest person ever to drive a formula one car last year at the age of 80. She's bloody amazing.

Noor Inayat Khan was astonishing.

Helena Normanton - first woman barrister.

Thatcher, like her or loathe her.

Jeanette Orrey, who got so sick of feeding kids shite at schools she started a school meals revolution.

Ida Cook and her sister Louise. Self-described 'ordinary' women who, when they realised what was happening to Jews under the Nazis, couldn't sit by and not do something, so travelled to Germany and helped people to escape. They used their 'ordinariness' to go under the radar.

Ida had a successful career as a writer under the name of Mary Burchell. It was the money she earned writing Mills and Boon romances that funded their trips to Germany.

I find it immensely inspiring that they left their comfortable world to assist in a humanitarian crisis that had no direct impact on them. Quiet, unassuming sheroism.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-38732779

I love Mae Jemison - she did so many different things: Doctor, Peace Corps, NASA astronaut, Professional dancer, actress, writer, scientist, inventor - and all as an African American woman.

I love the message that you don't have to pick and choose or write off doing anything you love - just focus on your science and dancing after you get back from space!

My wonderful mum.

One of the smartest people I’ve ever known. So passionate about literature and music. She left school at sixteen and worked low paid insecure jobs all her life to support her family. She taught me to read before I even set foot in a school and got me my first library card when I was only six weeks old. She played classical music to me in her womb and I grew up surrounded by music, she sacrificed anything for herself to enable me to take music lessons which led to me going to uni for a music degree.

She became an alcoholic when I was nineteen and the addiction gripped her so strongly she drank herself to death within two years. Even throughout that she always tried to protect me and save me from witnessing her downfall. She tried so hard to recover and I’ve never seen anyone fight so hard to survive, but it wasn’t enough and I sat with her as she died. I was 22.

She was the absolute best mum in the world and the perfect mother for me. Thanks to her love of music and reading I was able to go to uni, thanks to supporting her through her alcoholism I learned so much about addiction and mental health issues and developed compassion for people struggling with these issues, I ended up volunteering in rehabs in prisons and trained as a social worker and then a therapist to help people who most of society turn their backs on. She taught me so much and I would like to think I’ve made her proud. I’m where I am today thanks to her and I love and miss her deeply. She was such an inspiration. I’d rather have had her for 22 years than any other mum for a lifetime.

I would like to nominate Miep Gies, the Dutch lady who helped feed the people who hid with Anne Frank.
Miep managed to find enough food for two familes for years, during a time of strict rationing. After the family was betrayed to the Nazis, she rescued Annes diary.
Had she been caught she would have been shot or sent to a concentration camp.

She said 'We did our duty as human beings: helping people in need.'

@DuggeeHugs

That’s ok, she can be named twice! Great minds...

FearLoveAndTheTimeMachine

Wow. What an accolade.

Thanks Datun. I know being a brilliant mum is something a lot of people achieve but she really is the most inspiring woman I’ve ever met. 💛

2 more of my every day heroes.

My friend who was diagnosed with cervical cancer at 26, underwent vicious chemo and radiotherapy for over a year. She was given the all clear at 28. She's had to come to terms with likely never having biological children which was a bitter pill to swallow given we all started getting married and having children soon after. She's an amazing honorary aunt to her friends children. She's had promotion after promotion at work and has just bought her own house as a single woman, no input from family. She's amazing.

My other friend who completed her PhD whilst looking after a small baby (her husband was bloody useless). I'm in awe of her, I hardly brushed my hair this morning!

Malala.

My Irish granny who became one of the first WRNS in WW1.

My dear friend Alex Eades (www.charlottesbag.com)

Mary Woolstonecraft, Lucy Bronze, Alex Scott, The Bronte sisters, my grandmother and Debbie Harry.

Jenny Lee. Nye Bevan's wife.

MAiread Corrigan and Betty Williams of the Northern Ireland peace movement.
Vera Brittain, WW1 nurse, writer and peace activist.
Valentina Tereshkova, first woman in space.
Michelle Obama ‘When they go low, we go high’

💙 Michelle Obama

@CorpseBridezilla2be quite right. Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughn too!

Stella, who kept the original Nottingham Womens Centre and DV shelter going for years.
She worked tirelessly for her community in Radford and Hyson Green for years after the new centre was started.