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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Inspirational women in history - who's yours?

256 replies

HecateTrivia · 08/06/2012 13:58

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

OP posts:
Riversidegirl · 09/06/2012 21:39

Sorry, not famous but I have to say my mum has been a great inspiration to me. She had a hard life but raised a large family and a very ill husband. We all turned out OK and respectful. Once we had all left home and dad died she had time to become seriously ill herself but can still see the funny side of many situations...even being burgled once. I have often wanted to nominate her for an award so this is a start.

beatricequimby · 09/06/2012 21:58

Vera Brittain as mentioned upthread and also Winifred Holtby, her great friend, served WW1, social reformer and author

Elsie Inglis, early woman medic, set up women's medical unit to serve in WW1

Noor Inayat Khan - like Violette Szabo, a Secret Agent who died in Occupied France, WW2

The girls of the Little Rock 9 - amazingly courageous teenagers who were the first black students to attend the all-white Little Rock High in Arkansas. Obviously admire the boys just as much but as this thread is about inspirational women ...

Yellowtip · 09/06/2012 22:23

Mary King????????????????????????????????????????

Yellowtip · 09/06/2012 22:29

I'd have thought Anne Boleyn was totally manipulated and then spat out by men, so an object of pity perhaps, but not inspiration.

Poor Elizabeth appears to have been understandably screwed up.

GiantPuffball · 09/06/2012 22:38

Anne Boleyn was very intelligent and discussed a lot of what formed the new church of England with Henry, who incidently was a complete psychopath. She was unlucky that she didn't bear healthy sons.

CarnivorousPanda · 09/06/2012 22:39

Elizabeth the First
Mary Wollstonecraft
The Brontes
Noor Inayat Khan and Violette Szabo
Maria Callas

Not Mother Teresa after reading Hitchens and speaking to an Indian friend....

CarnivorousPanda · 09/06/2012 22:41

Forgot Elizabeth Fry

Yellowtip · 09/06/2012 22:49

The fact that she could discuss religion intelligently didn't spare her from being totally subordinate to her father, brother and husband, in the end.

Almost everyone of a certain class could discuss religion in those days anyhow. Nothing special. You needed to know your Deuteronomy from your Leviticus and align yourself, if you knew what was what.

MsPavlichenko · 09/06/2012 23:15

Lyudmilla Pavlichenko, Soviet sniper during WW2, killed more than 300 Nazis. Woody Guthrie wrote a song about her.
Angela Davis, Author of Women, Race and Class, and famously framed by Ronald Reagan/FBI in early seventies.
Agnes MacLean, Glaswegian Trades Unionist, and equal pay campaigner.

funnyperson · 10/06/2012 00:54

The 'Oxford book of famous people' is also worth having, though a bit like a list and not nearly as exciting as the old hardbacks with deeds of derring do which adorned my parents' shelves.

funnyperson · 10/06/2012 01:03

Incidentally I remember reading about Violette Szabo in a readers digest article at a tender age and particularly that she was tortured by having her fingernails removed, and I have to say, coward that I am, I determined then that I was never going to be a spy.

NameGotLostInCyberspace · 10/06/2012 01:08

My MIL. Because she refused to mutulate the genitals of her 3 daughters under family and cultural pressure because she knew it was just wrong.

ICutMyFootOnOccamsRazor · 10/06/2012 01:27

Smile NameGotLost

Lazydaisy55 · 10/06/2012 02:11

Mine is Elizabeth Fry. She was a pioneer of reforming prisons . I learnt about her when I was in school and have always remembered her.

Wilding · 10/06/2012 06:56

Barbara Castle - to my mind a much more inspirational politician than Thatcher, and one who did much more for women by pushing through the Equal Pay Act

sunshine75 · 10/06/2012 07:12

Ellen Wilkinson (wee Ellen) - the only women to do the Jarrow March.

duchesse · 10/06/2012 08:26

I forgot Eleanor Rathbone.

HecateTrivia · 10/06/2012 08:33

i love all these.

I particularly love the examples given of women in the poster's life who inspire them. my mother in law inspires me. She's an amazing woman. She's in her late 80s, lives in rural kenya, has a farm and is still out in the fields herself. AND runs a little shop. AND walks a couple of miles a day. AND always has a houseful of her beloved grandchildren.

She lost two of her 10 children, and her husband, within a short space of time.

She got on an aeroplane for the first time to travel all the way here when our first child was born and despite the fact that we couldn't speak the same language, we got on wonderfully. She was such a help.

She learned English for me! At her age! Just so she could talk to me. (I tried to learn kikuyu too, but I am ashamed to say that she managed better than me to learn a new language Blush )

She raised ten children and she and her husband put them all through school. All the way to university - rural farmers in kenya at a time that there was no free education! (there's still not much!)

She's so wise, comforting, strong, and she's got a wicked sense of humour! There's such a twinkle in her eye.

I could go on about her all day. She is just the most amazing woman. If I could be half the woman she is, I'd be so proud of myself!

OP posts:
duchesse · 10/06/2012 08:49

Not historical, but are amazing:

susiedaisy · 10/06/2012 09:53

hecate your mil sounds wonderfulSmile

susiedaisy · 10/06/2012 09:58

duchesse what a great video

Margerykemp · 10/06/2012 10:03

Mary Somerville

Solopower · 10/06/2012 10:25

Duchesse that's a fantastic video! I think you should start a thread with it on the Feminism topic.

I'd love to see a programme about it on TV. The way they said men were untrainable because they were too ambitious and saw training as a way of advancing themselves and would take their skills away from the village; the way they were using illiterate grandmothers; the way there is no place for big business - it has to be a partnership approach ...

Love it!

freerangelady · 10/06/2012 10:31

Bess of Hardwick. Love how she made a name and fortune for herself in such a male dominated society. And I love the house she built!

Have to say I don't think that Anne Boleyn was totally controlled by her father. She knew what she wanted and she went for it.

Not real - but Scarlett O'Hara - a bad day always feels better after you mutter to yourself "tomorrow IS another day"

WidowWadman · 10/06/2012 10:37

Wilding

"Emily Wilding Davison, the suffragette who threw herself under the king's horse"

Not sure about her - she campaigned for the right thing, but her choice of action (from stone throwing, over setting fire to post boxes, to jumping in front of her horse) are not really what I'd call inspiring, and ultimately, especially the horse incident, from what I've read may have hurt the cause more than that it helped it.

Hecate - I s'pose Madonna can be argued to be as inspirational as anyone who made a fortune under their own steam. She wouldn't be my choice, but I can see who those who do come from