Clever Dames

12/08/2023

The Egyptian-American scientist on falling in love with the stars, the problems faced by women of colour in her field, and her preventive double mastectomy

17/07/2023

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is the first Native person to oversee a department once charged with removing Indigenous people from their land.

05/07/2023

In 1997 she transformed the way we think about human difference – and provided a name for a burgeoning movement

28/06/2023

She chaired the Feminist Majority Foundation, which campaigned to introduce the abortion pill mifepristone, and backed politicians including Nancy Pelosi.

28/06/2023

Another wow from The Guardian.

The sisters and a group of women from a local Indigenous tribe started a kelp farm in the hopes of cleaning up the pollution in their shared backyard

16/06/2023

Los Angeles siblings Justina and Faith help each other find business success – and change the look of the industry with their distinctive style

15/06/2023

One of the few all time great, talented powerhouses!

Her singular passion lit up performances from Women in Love to King Lear and drove her 23-year middle career as an MP

08/06/2023

The continues with more insightful panel sessions about the topics of peace and security at the European Parliament.

Members of Parliament from around the world are engaged in conversations about global partnerships, disinformation, and rules-based international order.

28/05/2023

The 80-year-old Chilean-born writer, whose latest novel is "The Wind Knows My Name," talks about her tumultuous family history, and the passion and courage of her stories' female characters.

17/05/2023

A complete wow!

Pregnant at 15, and soon to be homeless, O’Sullivan never expected to succeed – but became a leading academic. The author of Poor talks about everything that conspired to keep her down – and her ‘miraculous and rare’ ascent

05/05/2023

In the aftermath of the sprinter’s death at the age of just 32, her USA teammate remembers a talented athlete who did things her own way

13/04/2023

Mini-skirts, yes!

Family says she was ‘an outstanding innovator of the Swinging Sixties’ and died peacefully at home

09/04/2023

Can u imagine? Wearing pants was a crime….

01/04/2023

30/03/2023

A few years into her teaching career, life took Emily Jaramillo in an unexpected direction. One day in 2001, Jaramillo, then a teacher in Albuquerque, had invited a local firefighter to her class...

17/03/2023

Raised in Hertfordshire and encouraged to think big from an early age, Fox is only second woman to hold the post

15/03/2023

Just learned she was a pilot, as well as everything else…

One of her biggest victories was signing a family leave bill in 1993, providing job protection for care of a newborn, sick child or parent

13/03/2023

Whether it’s Hollywood or any other industry, too many men need reminding that women can be good at their jobs even if you don’t fancy them

11/03/2023

Queen Latifah and Pia Wilson take part in celebration of abolitionist in New Jersey city

10/03/2023

!!

The Barbie modelled on me is awe-inspiring – a space scientist with her own telescope, says Sky at Night presenter Maggie Aderin-Pocock

02/03/2023

Diggins is the first American to take an individual gold medal in Nordic skiing.

19/02/2023

As the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine arrives, author Olia Hercules recalls those first horrifying days, and the pride she feels as she watches her home country’s fight for survival

16/02/2023

Joy Harjo has been named the winner of Yale’s 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry. The Bollingen Prize, established by Paul Mellon in 1949, is awarded biennially by Yale University Library through Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library to an American poet for the best book published during...

09/02/2023

Never knew.

She was a founder of Caedmon Records, one of the only labels of its time that was owned by women. The company released spoken-word albums by writers such as Dylan Thomas.

09/02/2023

Brava!

You won’t know her face, but this is the brilliant mind responsible for quite possibly the best slice of TV in decades. Her brilliant writing united the nation and brightened up a usually dark and dreary January. It had us crying, shouting at the TV, and holding our breath as three series of pure joy unfolded. It was absolute perfection. Every word. Top-tier TV.

Happy Valley writer Sally Wainwright, everyone 👏

31/01/2023

Bobbi Wilson’s efforts to rid her town of the spotted lanternfly unwittingly touched off a national discussion about racial profiling

26/01/2023

As a strong campaigner for African-American pilots, Brown became the co-founder of the National Airmen’s Association of America.

23/01/2023

Remarkable dame.

Claudia Andujar has photographed the Yanomami in the Amazon during a lifetime of activism. At 91, she is still helping protect their rainforest homeland.

21/01/2023

Born in New York City in 1862, Edith Wharton grew up in the comforts of a family of wealth and prestige, but as part of a high society of strict rules that encumbered women. The rules she promptly ignored, as Edith pursued her interests regardless of norms from a young age.

Enamored with learning, Edith became fluent in French, German, and Italian while spending many of her childhood years living in Europe. But while she perfected languages, it was writing and storytelling that captured her heart and mind. From early in life, she was inventing stories and writing poetry.

Continuing to work on her craft, at fifteen, Edith completed a thirty thousand word novella. That same year, she sold her first poem. By eighteen, literary magazines published multiple poems, though all under a pseudonym, as writing was not an acceptable profession for a woman of her class.

Writing would become Edith's life work. She published forty-eight books and at least eighty-five short stories. And in 1921, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature for her book, The Age of Innocence, becoming the first woman to receive the award.

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Sources: Photograph taken circa 1885 - National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, S/NPG.78.142

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15/01/2023

In demeanor, Clara Barton was sensitive, warmhearted and she was patient. And while she spoke in a soft voice and often with a smile, she was persistent; there was "fire and force to her character."

Born on Christmas Day in 1821 in North Oxford, Massachusetts, Clara was shy as a child. To help overcome her timid nature, her parents suggested teaching as a profession. Clara followed their guidance, becoming a teacher while in her late teens.

After over a decade of teaching, she opened the first school in Bordentown, New Jersey. What started as a classroom for a few kids soon taught many of the town's children. A school board formed as the school grew. And soon, they added a principal, as the committee felt leading such a large educational organization was a role not befitting for a woman. The stresses of this change led to health ailments for Clara and eventually to her leaving.

She moved into a new field in 1855, taking a role as a clerk in the patent office, the first woman to receive such an important federal clerkship and a salary equal to the men. But once again, she faced much discrimination. Often abused and slandered by the men she worked with, Clara was fired from her role the following year.

With the breakout of the Civil War, Clara wanted to get involved. She went to the local railroad station and began nursing soldiers as they arrived. She did whatever she could to soothe the soldiers with their pain, including assisting with their treatment, managing supplies, reading to them, writing letters to family for them, and supporting them to keep their spirits up. Eventually, she would also take roles on the battlefield, putting her life in danger. In one case, a bullet went through the sleeve of her dress, killing the man she was treating. But she would write in a letter of her life as a nurse in war, “I shall remain here while anyone remains, and do whatever comes to my hand. I may be compelled to face danger, but never fear it, and while our soldiers can stand and fight, I can stand and feed and nurse them.” And for all her effort, people called Clara the "Angel of the Battlefield."

After the war, Clara learned that many family members of missing soldiers were contacting the War Department. These letters were going unanswered. She contacted President Lincoln, who appointed her into the role of corresponding with family and friends of people missing. She and her team would reply to 41,855 inquiries and help locate over twenty-two thousand missing men over a few years.

Life then took her to Europe, where she came across the Red Cross organization while relaxing to recover from poor health. Collaborating with leaders in the organization, she would eventually take on a leadership role herself and drive expanding the operation to the U.S., where she led for over twenty years until she resigned in her mid-80s.

Her niece, offering a perspective on how Clara viewed life, shared this wisdom that Clara offered her: "Be always calm, my child. Keep yourself quiet and in restraint, reserve your energies, doing those little things that lie in your way, each one as well as you can, saving your strength, so that when God does call you to do something good and great you will not have wasted your forces and strength with useless strivings, but will be ready to do the work quickly and well - go slowly, my child, and keep ready."

Clara passed away from pneumonia at the age of 90.

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Sources:

"CLARA BARTON." The Journal of Education, vol. 43, no. 6 (1064), 1896, pp. 88-89. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44047541. Accessed 2 Mar. 2021. / Clara Barton - Wikipedia & Wikiquote / Portrait taken in 1904 by James Edward Purdy - Clara Barton, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, . / SMITH, KATHERINE LOUISE. "CLARA BARTON AND THE RED CROSS SOCIETY." The Journal of Education, vol. 47, no. 23 (1182), 1898, pp. 356-357. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44059994. Accessed 2 Mar. 2021. / STEWART, JANE A. "THE CENTENNIAL OF CLARA BARTON." The Journal of Education, vol. 94, no. 24 (2360), 1921, pp. 662. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/42831644. Accessed 2 Mar. 2021. / Letter to Mrs. Elizabeth Jennings Pitkin, January 12, 1901 - Clara Barton Papers: General Correspondence, -1912; "P" miscellaneous, 1875 to 1912. 1875. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, .

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08/01/2023

Age 60– smart, confident, martial arts person, gifted actor!

The actress who rose to fame in Hong Kong action films and gained international attention as a "Bond girl" is a frontrunner for an Oscar nomination for her performance in the trippy multiverse action-comedy.

06/01/2023

Holocaust survivor and published author Lily Ebert was included in King Charles III’s 2023 New Years Honors List, one of the highest honors someone can receive in the UK. Lily and her great-grandson, Dov Forman , author of international bestseller 'Lily's Promise', regularly share Lily's story on Tiktok. (Link in the comment section below).

Mazal Tov, Lily!

05/01/2023

When Rita Levi-Montalcini decided to become a scientist, she was determined that nothing would stand in her way. And from the beginning, that determination was put to the test. Before Levi-Montalcini became a Nobel Prize-winning neurobiologist, the first to discover and isolate a crucial chemical ca...

30/12/2022

The work is challenging and demands long spells away from home, but the country’s only line school for women is changing attitudes in a male-dominated field

22/12/2022

Former physician, mother of seven, and firmly opposed to Putin’s war.

In a year marked by economic upheaval, war in Ukraine and the persistent Covid-19 pandemic, the European Commission’s first-ever female leader has stood steady and strong.

10/12/2022

A Harrow schoolgirl lowers the age record for a national women’s champion by more than four years after sharing the crown