Conference turris::womannotes-v2

    
    	Oh without a doubt, Dian Fossey.  Her work with mountain gorillas 
    	and her quest to preserve animal rights in a world so annihilated 
    	by human destruction of the Earth and nearly everything on it has 
    	always been an inspiration to me.
    
    	She made a difference to this planet.  A true difference.
    
    	Somehow, sitting in front of a terminal in a fluorescently-lit,
    	forced-air ultra-conservative building is not what this life is 
    	about for me, and I hope someday I have what it takes to really 
    	contribute to this world.
    
    	Carla
    

	 Phyllicia (sp?!?!?) Rashad



	 (And not just her Cosby portrayal....)  ;-)

	 kath

    Helen Keller, 1880-1968.  
    
    I read nothing but biographies one year (think I was 11), and hers
    stood out sharply.  Blind and deaf and a total terror to her family by
    age 7, she was painstakingly taught sign language, Braille, and even --
    by feeling people's mouths and throats as they spoke -- vocal speech.
    As a child, I was in awe that someone could go from living like an
    animal, frustrated and unable to communicate, to a full life.
    
    She and Ann Sullivan (her teacher) represent intelligence,
    perseverence, compassion, integrity, and creativity to me.  
    
    Pam
    
    P.S.  In a wider sense, it also taught me that people who are
    unpleasant or strange (like Helen before she knew how to communicate)
    may have amazing resources inside that we just don't know how to reach.

I've never really had heroes, in the sense of people who I idolized from youth
and wanted to emulate.

But if I had to choose one person whom I respect and admire unconditionally,
male or female, it would be Katherine Hepburn.  Her approach to life, both
on screen and in real life, is one I try to follow.

If my child had been born a girl, she would have been named Katherine in
Hepburn's honor.


				Steve

    I'd have to agree with Carla.  After watching Gorillas in the Mist I
    too felt moved for Dian.  She had such strength.  I cried during that
    movie!  There are many women that can be admired in this world.  How
    about Barbara Bush, Nancy Reagan, Jackie Onassis, Mother Thereasa,
    Margaret Thatcher, Sally Ride, Sandra Day O'Conner???  How about women
    in the media; Oprah Winfrey (poor child, sexually molested to become
    one of today's top superstars), Dolly Parton, poor childhood, survived
    anerexia, poor health but still hanging in there, contraversal Cher and
    Madonna - sure they are offbeat but they are shrewd business women,
    know what they want and go for it!  Loretta Swit and Lindsay Wagner
    both work for animal rights.  There are many, many women who have made
    a definate difference in the world and in our lives.  I think society
    was just slack at recognizing them. -- but I believe that is changing.
    Take a look at yourself, you probably have very admirable qualties
    yourself!!  My stepmother is one of the people I admire.  She was
    married at 18 had two babies when her husband was killed.  She then
    married my dad (dad had custody my sister and I) and had another baby
    to my dad.  That's five small kids with 9 years from the oldest to the
    youngest.  So along with taking care of all of us, she finished college
    got a teaching degree, took extra courses in reading/teaching sign
    language, did community work, church work, went thru some MAJOR health
    problems which could have claimed her life and has been happily married
    to my dad for over 20 years.  -- when I look at my life, I find that
    amazing!  

    See also note 350.*, Women of Note.  (mine! mine! mine! ;-)
    
    DougO

    Sally Ride - as a child I always wanted to be the "first woman"
                 astronaut.
    
    Christa McCauliffe (sp?) - for having the courage to dream
    
    Helen Keller
    Katherine Hepburn 
    Glenn Close
    
    Just to name a few.
                       
    

    Margaret Sanger
    Elisabeth Seton
    
      OK, so they're both dead and aren't a matched set to the casual
    observer; but both were strong and effective despite a few set-backs.
    They're still my top two [of any sex or persuasion].
    
      More contemporary [and probably popular] heros of mine include:
    
        Jane Alexander
        Joan Benoit
        Maire & Eithne [aka Enya] Brennan
        Barbara Jordan
        Jessica Tandy
    
      Which is not to say that I love and admire everything each of them
    does.  But I admire these women, again for their strength of conviction
    and their determination to accomplish their goals...not to mention
    their gifts and abilities.
    
      Ann

    
    Virginia Woolf.
    
    A wonderful feminist writer, keenly aware of women's oppression.
    Despite childhood sexual abuse from her two half-brothers, and
    (probably as a result) recurrent bouts of madness, she wrote numerous
    novels, essays, letters, diaries, etc. Very witty and sensitive
    and often very funny (especially her novel Orlando). My favorite
    work of hers is A Room of One's Own, where she shows up the British
    patriarchy, especially in academia, for what it is, and suggests
    how women can exist in it...
    

    I admire Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, both black American women
    who have recently received Pulitzer prizes.  I love their books.
    
    I admire Marge Piercy, Margaret Atwood, and Fay Weldon also for their books.
    
    I also admire Stevie Nicks for her music, her concerts, and her
    beauty (including her clothes & hair).
    
    Lorna
    

	I think that anyone who tries a little can come up with at
	least one female they admire - so if your friend said he
	could not then I would think that we was pulling your leg.

	For me I admire Amelia Erhart, Margaret Fuller and Emily
	Dickenson - I also have a heros - Greta Garbo, Georgia
	O'Keefe and Dian Fosse - then there is Charlotte Perkins
	Gilman, Pat Schoder(sp?) (from Colorado) and many many more.

	Pick an area and there is most likely a woman who has excelled
	in it who deserves our admiration.

	The real question should be not how many outstanding women
	are there (have there been) but how many so-so women have
	been successful to the same degree as so-so men?

	_peggy

		(-)
		 |
			There was a woman on WCVB news last night
			who was doing a rebutal to a previous editorial
			I don't remember her name but I really admired
			her - she spoke the truth of her experience
			which was not white middleclass wonderfulness.

Susan B Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Martha Adams, Amelia Earhart (sp?),
Beryl xxxx of "West With the Night", Geraldine Ferraro, xxx Bhutto,
Natalie Barney, Harriet Tubman, Holly Near, Joan Baez, Sojourner Truth.

These women are/were not afraid to work for what they wished, without allowing
others to control them.

      Carol

    
    i'm not into 'heros' either, but one 'high-profile' woman i certainly
    admire is Faye Wattleton of planned parenthood.
    
    p.s. i believe it's beryl markham and benazir bhutto
    

    
    
    
    	Amelia Erhardt, Jackie Cochran, Beryl Markham, Kathryn Hepburn,
    	Agatha Christie, Hellen Keller, Mother Theresa, Harriet Tubman,
    	and I can't even possibly list all the women I admire cause
    	there are so many of them.
        					kim *8^}

    Who was the woman who lived with the chimpanzees for so very long (made
    a few national geographic documentaries...too...darn, it's on the tip
    of my tongue, too...) - or was it orangutangs.... (I know it wasn't
    gorillas).  
    
    Celia Thaxter, who lived on windswept rock tending lighthouses and
    writing poetry....
    
    Women like Geneen Roth and Carol Gilligan who have looked into their
    own and other women's souls and helped build bridges for all who need
    them....
    
    Women like Mae West who broke the mold.
    
    -Jody
    

    in re .15
    
    Jane Goodall
    
    one of mine also :-)

    Queen Elizabeth the first has always been my hero. She rode horses
    with the best of them and fought political battles BETTER than the
    rest of them.

    Mae West took charge of her career and wrote her own movie scripts
    and lived as she wanted in an age when censors were strangling the
    industry.

    I agree with _peggy. It's when so-so women can be as successful as
    so-so men that we will have really arrived. liesl

        Ayn Rand
        
        Dan

    Let's not forget Adm. Grace Hopper.
    
    Deb

    re .15,.16:
    
    Gee, and I was going to say that with all this talk of Diane Fosse, no
    had mentioned Jane Goodall, who I believe was Diane's "hero". 
    (and btw, it was (and is still) chimpanzees).
    
    Madame Curie.
    
                                                   
                  /
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                  ) ///
                 /
    

    I also admire the woman who wrote all the Born Free books and was
    also murdered in Africa.  I can't think of her name, even though
    I read all of her books a long time ago.  She devoted her life to
    trying to help animals survive the greed of humans.

    I also admire Emma Goldman, Angela Davis, Golda Mier (sp?) and Rosa
    Parks, all women who definitely had the courage of their convictions.
    
    Eleanor Roosevelt would be the first lady I admire the most.
    She did more than just redecorate, wear designer clothes and raise
    dogs.
    
    Lorna
    

    I wonder if superheroes count?
    
    When all the guys had Batman, Superman, etc, I used to dream of being
    like Jeannie or Samantha of Bewitched. I wanted to be able to fly
    through the air.
    
    Later, when Wonder Woman finally came on, I started researching the
    Amazons, and this was something I really wanted to be like. Missing
    breast and all.

    Babe Didrickson Zaharias
    Amelia Erhart
    Dickie Chappelle
    Joan d' Arc
    Annie Oakley
    
    and, like so many others, so many others!
    
    Dondi

    Just a few from when I was growing up:
    
    Billie Jean King
    Georgette Heyer
    Victoria Holt
    Mary Stewart
    Josephine Tey
    Helen MacInnes
    Helen Pinkerton
    George Eliot
    
    --bonnie

    Linda Ellerbee: journalist, reporter and author.  I happened to catch
    (on C-SPAN) a speech which she gave at a presentation called "Women,
    Men and Media", and was deeply moved (amused, appalled, enlightened,
    angered) by it.  

    RE: .21  I  believe  her name is Joy Adamson (I think her husband,
    George, was a co-author on the early books about Elsa).

    I might  add  Barbara McClintock, and my two best high school math
    teachers, Mrs. Koelsh, and Dr. Savavge.

--David

    My tenth grade English teacher asked the same question.  Assuming
    heroes were only images (unless I knew the person), I said Rosie 
    the Riveter.
    
    I have always admired Margaret Sanger for her work and her dedication
    to it.
    
    re: .15 
    Birute Galdekas (sp?) is the orangutan woman in Indonesia.
    
    Nancy

    Arlene Blum, Himalayan mountaineer, organizer of the 1976 American
    Women's Expedition to Annapurna in the Himalayas - at a time when
    many male mountaineers still questioned whether women should be
    climbing big mountains...the team who coined the phrase
    "A Woman's Place Is On Top".  :-)
    
    One already mentioned from politics: Eleanor Roosevelt!  How could
    one forget *her* when compiling a list of heroines?!  She was terrific!
    
    I don't think these women were yet mentioned: Margaret Mead,
    Ada Lovelace, Lucille Ball, Gloria Steinem, Betty Freidan,
    Elizabeth Dole.
    
    

Don't know if I'd call her my hero, but I've always admired Bonnie Raitt.

Jenna    

Susan Butcher of Iditarod fame.

Jeanne Kirkpatrick

Molly Yard

 The Doctah

 ps- I wonder why most women that are "heroes" seem to be admired for having
"an iron will" or other strong character feature. I wonder why no heroines
seem to be admired simply for being wonderfully nurturing (or at least
it seems this way.) Perhaps because "nurturing" women rarely become famous
for that characteristic?

    
    Previous replies have named most of the women I admire, but I do
    remember looking up to Shirley Chisholm when I was young -- maybe when
    I was a young teen.  She was very active -- or maybe just very much in 
    the press -- for some period of time and then she seemed fade out.
    I think I even remember talk of her possibly being the first black,
    female president, a pretty exciting idea, then and now.  (Does anyone 
    know anything about her?  I only have fuzzy memories.)
    
    CQ

    
    the comments on Holly Near and Bonnie Raitt made me immediately
    think of :
    
    Joan Baez, who has always sung her convictions...I really do admire
    her.
    also Lillian Carter...Jimmy's mother, who joined the Peace Corps when
    she was 60 (70?)
    and Mary Cassatt for her magnificent artistic ability.
    
    and lots of others!
    
    deb
    

    * Barbara Jordan (surprized no one mentioned
    * Molly Hatch (president of NOW)
    * Barbara Bush
    * ???   (founder of Boston Coalition Against Drugs who lives alone
       and has a $5000 bounty on her head from the inner-city gangs.)
      Please someone tell me her name. I forgot it. She deserves mention.                                            
    * Mother Theresa most of all because she gives from the heart. I'm
      going to do an oil painting of her. Her facial lines are incredible.
      They show a lifetime of kindness.
     
    Kate

    Helen Caldicott (sp?) - the anti-nuclear activist/physician from
                            Australia I think

Florence Nightingale

Dr Shirley Strum, studies baboons (some of you may have heard of the 
	          Pumphouse Gang?)

I grew up in a rather sexist and racist environment, and so didn't really have
any heroes who weren't white/male, but one of my favorite people was a black
maid my parents employed, named Dora Brown, who never let my father's racism
prevent her from speaking her mind.  She taught me a lot about dignity and
respect.

Some female heroes of my adulthood -

	My mother
	Mother Theresa
	Benazir Bhutto
	Reanne Eisler
	Merlin Stone

And the latest and one of the greatest -

	Ida B. Wells


/Mike

    No one has mentioned Abigail Adams. I don't know very much about her,
    only the characterization in the musical "1776" and little bits of "The
    Adams Chronicles" on PBS. There is also a biography of her published
    recently that I would like to read if it ever comes out in paperback.
    
                                                   
                  /
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                  ) ///
                 /
    

    My heros are local.  Channel Five in Boston have many anchors and
    reporters that I find to be very inspirational.  Susan Warnick is a
    wonderful woman with a great sense of humor.  Natalie Jacobson is
    definitely someone to admire.  
    
    The woman who runs Rosie's place is also someone who I think is a hero
    (Sorry I've forgotten her name)  Also, Ann McGuire who is on the
    commission for the homeless.
    
    Denise

    I personally like Lauren Stratford - author of Satan's Underground

    
    Jean Redpath     - Scottish singer and preserver of folk songs
    
    Madeline L'Engle - I especially admire her fiction series about the Austins
       writer          (Spirituality and family love seem so rare nowadays
                        in coming-of-age novels...)
    
    Anna LaBastille - I admire her work to save the Attitlan Grebe (an
       writer/        endangered bird that lives in only one lake in
       naturalist     Guatemala) despite cultural differences and
                      threats by several groups of people.
                     
                    
                      

Chris Evert- always been my hero!

Katherine Hepburn- do you know that in her early movies, 
                   she got a lot of grief from Hollywood
                   for wearing pants, but she wouldn't
                   do the movie if she wasn't allowed 
                   to wear pants!

Lucille Ball-  She was one of the first to get Hollywood
               to produce a show with a minority actor
               (Desi Arnez- cuban), as the star

    
    re: .33 Kate
    
    Do you mean Georgette Watson, the founder of Drop-a-Dime?
    

    
    re .33:
    
>    * Molly Hatch (president of NOW)
    
    You mean Molly Yard.
    
    
    re .40:
    
>    Anna LaBastille - I admire her work to save the Attitlan Grebe (an
>       writer/        endangered bird that lives in only one lake in
>       naturalist     Guatemala) despite cultural differences and
>                      threats by several groups of people.
    
    It's Anne LaBastille.  And I love her too!  I'm currently reading
    her most recent book, *Beyond Black Bear Lake*.  It's just as
    delightful as her other books, especially *Woodswoman*, and also
    *Women and Wilderness*.
    

    <--(.40)
    
    Yeah, Jane!  Jeannie Redpath, hasn't she got a *beautiful* voice!?!
    I could listen to that woman all day long.  [*sigh*]

    						=maggie

    Ursula LeGuin
    
    I met her in one of my honey's classes in UCSD. She wears pants, smokes
    a pipe, probably drives a truck, and is (happily?) married with at
    least a daughter. Wonderful woman, smart, articulate, strange, and a great
    writer.
    
    	-- Charles

    Three Aussie women, Kay Cottee (sailed around the world singlehanded),
    Gabby Kennard (flew around the world singlehanded) and Maggie Tabberer
    who despite being dumped on most of her life has made it to the top as
    one of the most respected women in Oz and one of the most beautiful.  
    
    The other is Kate Hepburn because she just 'is' .
    
    ...dale
    

    My mother.  She managed to raise five children, become a CA, started
    up, owned and operated a successful clothing store.  All at the same
    time and all after she turned thirty.  And she was always home when
    we arrived after school.
    
    Amazing.
    
    Kris

Lead singer of Eurythmics.  She's strong, her lyrics speaks worlds of strength
and compassion and persistence.  She's noncomformist, not for the sake of
noncomformity but because she wants to do what she wants to do without regard
for whether it is "socially unacceptable."  She isn't afraid to discuss
(in her lyrics) *any* subject honestly and forthrightly, she isn't at all
politically correct.  She's extremely sensual, and not afraid to show it,
and (I think) she is also incredibly beautiful, and she emphasizes her
beuaty in nontraditional ways.  She is about as far from the typical female
pop star as one can get.  (You should see her dance!)

I saw her in concert and she just radiated strength and sensuality.  

D!

    Pam Cushner, who died last weekend.  In the early '60's, when a
    complete masectomy was perceived by the medical establishment to
    be the ONLY answer to breast cancer.
    
    She took the medical establishment on, fighting for what she believed
    to be a viable alternative...the lumpectomy.  She petitioned, cajoled,
    and finally convinced people that yes, indeed, many women did not
    require a total masectomy when they found themselves in trouble with
    cancer.
    
    Because of her, many women today are offered a very important choice.

    
>>>    Madame Curie.
    
That's Marie Curie, no?  It is all very well to call oneself Mrs.  Curie
(assuming the necessary prerequisites), but when one is being recalled for
one's outstanding scientific achievements, a more appropriate rememberance
would be *her* name, would it not?

My absolute heroine has always been Harriet Tubman who led hundreds of people
from slavery to freedom.  Who was resourceful and daring (one time the slavers
were looking for her on a train, she grabbed a newspaper and held it up to her
face because it was known she couldn't read, though as she said, I was just
praying I was holding that paper right side up!)  and who traveled those
hundreds of miles again and again to rescue people at risk of her own life and
limb.   

Of course, second in line would have to be Sojourner Truth, who was an
*outstanding* orator.  Many of her speeches were undoubtedly lost...  but one
made it into history, at the first women's rights convention in the US (1848?), 
the second day or so was open to both sexes, and one preacher (male, o'course),
pointed out that if God had wanted women to be equal, wouldn't He have given
some sign through His son?  And, Ms.  Truth stood up and gave an improptu
speech called _Ain't_I_A_Woman?_  What I remember...
"...that man over there says that women need to be lifted into carriages
and helped over puddles...
But, ain't I a woman?
I have plowed, and sowed and gathered into barns, and no man could head me.
And, ain't I a woman?
I've had my children sold off into slavery and none but Jesus heard me.
And, ain't I a woman?
If my cup won't hold but half a pint though yours will hold a full measure, 
wouldn't it be cruel not to give me my half pint full?

Now, that man over there says that if God had wanted women to be equal he would
have given some sign through Jesus his son.

Well, where did Jesus come from?

From God and a woman!  --Man had nothing to do with it!"