Inspirational women in history - who's yours?

[HecateTrivia]

My son has to research and do a biography of an inspirational woman in history. I wondered who you feel inspired by?

Marie Stopes was a dreadful woman, totally in support of Eugenics, the reason she went into the contraception game was to prevent all those poor people from breeding.

MammaTJ that made me cry!!! Reminds me of my 94yo grandmother who is in a nursing home might actually print it out and put up in her bedroom!!

A woman who inspires me is Jane Austin, think she was incredible, really clever and funny and an independent woman. She saw marriage and society for what it was. She is someone I wish I could meet as really think we would have got on !!

Irena Sendler - saved 2000 children in WW2.
Aphra Behn
Salome Alexandra
Willa Brown - aviatrix that fought for both racial and gender equality in flying and military.

I'm going for Jessica Mitford. Hilarious, stubborn, clever, managed to forge a career as a writer and investigative journalist from very little education. Her writing dazzles me and I love the fact that there was no subject too dark or serious to be treated with her sly humour. LOVE her. A complete original.

Maybe already mentioned? Sophie Scholl

did anyone say Maya ANgelou

I see he chose Rosa Parks-good choice

I have only recently learned about Dr Sara Baker, but she's pretty darn amazing.
This comic has lots of great historical women

I would say Rosa Parks too... I named my daughter after her :)
Or Emeline Pankhurst and the suffragettes

An inspirational woman I've just learned about today is Virginia Apgar, inventor of the test for newborns. (Did anyone else think that the Apgar test was an acronym??)
She seems like an appropriate inspirational woman as this is mumsnet, after all!

Ellen Wilkinson- responsible for organising the Jarrow marches and one of the countries first female MP's, she also supported the figt against fascism in the spanish civil war, travelling to Spain and reporting on the bombings by the luftwaffe. Little known but a truly amazing lady.

Constance Markiewicz
Veronica Guerin
Mairead Corrigan
Betty Williams
Mary Robinson
Sinead O'Connor

(a few Irish and NI women there)

And the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo

Mary Seacole - talk about determination and grit - she was undaunted in doing what she believed in despite adversity and prejudice. I think a lot of Caribbean women have that spirit.

Josephine Butler
Emmeline Pankhurst
Corrie Ten Boom
Sara Payne
Doreen Lawrence
Angela Merkel

Has anyone mention Irena Sendler

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irena_Sendler]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irena_Sendler

The women who founded the first women's colleges and schools in the 19th century.

Women adventurers: Hester Stanhope, Freya Stark, Mary Kingsley.

I also think Katherine Parr is utterly fascinating - she was an ardent religious reformer who managed to survive the vicissitudes of religion under Henry VIII. She governed England for Henry when he was on campaign; she got on well with all her step-children; and she effectively turned her court into a mini-university for women.

Any mentions yet for Mathilda, she fought for her rights to inherit the English throne in the middle ages after her cousin usurped her because she was female. She lost but finally won the throne for her son, Henry the second, one of our better Kings. Yes, she let the country suffer a long and bloody civil war but the woman had guts and was smart, though not so people savvy. She was captured by her cousin and escaped in the dead of night in a snow storm, let down from the castle keep in a laundry basket and sneaking past the enemy line wrapped in a sheet which hid her in the snow snorm. Sometimes history is way cooler than anything you'd make up for a film or novel.........

Matylda Getter. (Polish nun who assisted the Polish Underground in many ways, including rescuing many hundreds of children from the Warsaw Ghetto and arranging for their care by her Franciscan order)

Dame Rose Heilbron - one of the first women barristers and QCs

Yes lavendercakes I thought it was an acronym. I'd pick Sinead O'Connor as an inspiration woman, she is divisive, not perfect but is a woman of strong convictions. Also Christina Buckley and all of the ladies who survived or were lost forever in the Magdalen Launderies [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_asylum Magdalen Laundry]

Granuaile

Good choice tipp

That's a beautiful poem, MamaTJ. I've read the 'crabby old man' version too. Always brings a lump to my throat.

I've seen it even on council websites. Apparently when it was found in the hospital in Dundee, it was distributed to all staff.

I hope it made them think.

mamma most nurses know of that poem, we had it hanging up on the wall in our staff room for a long time, it is quite touching isn't it,

that poems is indeed great mamaT thanks for posting it

Ive posted this on MN before. It is my favourite poem. ou probably know it, but it never hurts to read it again;

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Maya Angelou