| Women Who Ought To Be Famous | |
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We're looking for a few good women. They're not in the history books. So we asked you to find them - and you did! The "Women Who Ought to Be Famous" Collection started with a thread in the Women's Issues forum called "Really Cool Women who ought to be famous." Readers found dozens of women that you ought to have heard of - but probably never have. Read on and be amazed.
Reader's Nominations
HOPELESS1976
I'm shocked that no one has selected this woman yet: Maya Angelou - noted author and poet. "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" was one of the best books I have ever read. In the tradition of Steinbeck, her "salt of the earth" characters were vibrant, complex and touching.
PAMHAN
I'd like to contribute some names of women of whom people may not have heard. The first is Isabelle Autissier - the first woman to sail single-handedly around the world, and Dawn Riley, the first woman manager and CEO of an America's Cup sailing team - amazing women who are thriving in what has been considered a man's domain. Some people may recall that many men considered it to be "bad luck" for a woman to be on a boat. :)
PAMHAN
Here's another really cool woman who ought to be famous. Bryn Mawr biologist Nettie Stevens, was responsible for one of the 20th century's major scientific breakthroughs, showing that the chromosomes known as "X" and "Y" were responsible for determining the sex of individuals. This ended a longstanding scientific debate as to whether sex was determined by heredity or other factors. A sad day for all those men who blamed women for their "inability" to produce sons. :)
UCLAGIRL
I'd add the little-known Katherine and Marjorie Stinson. Katherine was the fourth woman to earn a pilot's license, and Marjorie was the ninth (at the time, she was also the youngest). Katherine became the first woman sworn in as an air mail carrier, the first woman to practice skywriting (first of either sex to accomplish night skywriting), the first woman to fly in China and Japan, and the only woman to volunteer for service as a pilot in World War I.Together, the sisters ran a flight school in San Antonio, Texas. There, Marjorie trained some 80 Americans and Canadians to be pilots in the war. Turned down by the Army as a pilot, Katherine became an ambulance driver in Europe.
Today, the Northside Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas, includes Katherine Stinson Middle School. In 1997, the National Aviation Club inaugurated the Katherine & Marjorie Stinson Award for Achievement dedicated to honoring "a living woman for an outstanding and enduring contribution, a meritorious flight, or a singular technical development in the field of aviation, aeronautics, space, or related sciences."
M (MERRYNS)
How about Maryam Rajavi - Iranian feminist and political leader. From the University of Rhode Island - Women Studies Director Donna M Hughes ..."In 1993, the Parliament of the National Council of Resistance of Iran elected Maryam Rajavi to be the President-elect of Iran, meaning that upon the overthrow of the fundamentalist regime she will resume the position of President of Iran until nation-wide elections can be held."
Here's an article about the role of Rajavi and of Iranian women in general in the opposition from the Middle East Times.