The Goddess – Antiquity
Nammu was the Goddess of the primordial sea, who was associated with the oldest generation of Mesopotamian deities and given the title “mother who gave birth to the heavens and the earth”
Sybil Ludington (1761 -1839)
Sybil Ludington and her family were fully engaged on the side of the American rebels as the Revolutionary War broke out. She was the eldest of 12 children and was used to helping her parents in their politics and their parenting.
Becoming “the female Paul Revere” was not the first time she had shown cleverness and courage. When British authorities were on their way to arrest her father, Sybil quickly lit all the candles in the house and had her siblings parade around the house, carrying objects that she hoped would give the impression of a large gathering of adults with muskets. British authorities,
fearing violent confrontation, kept moving.
On April 26, 1777, British soldiers marched into Danbury Connecticut to confiscate the hidden militia arms and supplies and to burn and loot the town as punishment. As darkness fell,16-year-old Sybil took off on horseback to instruct the militia members to muster the next morning. Sybil’s trip, over unfamiliar road and in darkness, was over twice as long as the famous ride of Paul Revere. At one point during her ride, Sybil even evaded an attack by highwaymen. She fulfilled her mission (unlike Paul Revere who was captured) and 400 men mustered at dawn to punish the soldiers as they left Danbury. The militia received a personal
thank you from Alexander Hamilton.
Jackie Mitchell (1913 – 1987)
In 1937 when 17-year-old pitcher Jackie Mitchel signed on with a Tennessee semi-pro team, The Lookouts, there were no prohibitions against women in professional baseball, but there were plenty soon after. Why is that? Jackie lit a match when she struck out two baseball icons, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
The Lookouts’ manager was going for maximum publicity when he brought “pretty” Jackie Mitchell out to see how Babe Ruth would handle her “curves.” Jackie defeated him in four pitches. Jackie’s next batter was Lou Gehrig. In only three consecutive pitches, she struck him out. News of Jackie’s takedown of the two heroes was fast but the baseball commissioner was faster. He voided Jackie’s contract with The Lookouts, and ruled that baseball was “too strenuous” for women. Jackie remained a formidable athlete in both basketball and baseball and supported women’s sports. In 1975, Jackie reminisced to a reporter, “Of course we never heard of women’s lib back then, but I guess you could say I was a pioneer at it. I’m interested in keeping up with what’s happening in female athletics and the efforts of the girls to play with the boys. I think they ought to be allowed to, if they are good enough.”
Rumors that Jackie’s triumphs were actually a publicity hoax plagued her for the rest of her life. Right before her death in 1987, she was still insulted by the suggestion, saying, “Hell, better hitters than them couldn’t hit me. Why should they’ve been any different?”
Babe Ruth is Quoted as saying “I don’t know what’s going to happen if they begin to let women in baseball. Of course, they will never make good. Why? Because they are too delicate. It would kill them to play ball every day.”
Madame CJ Walker (1867 – 1919)
Sarah Breedlove began her life as a child of freed slaves who worked on a Louisiana cotton plantation and ended it as the wealthiest and most successful entrepreneurs. In an era with few opportunities for women and even fewer for African American women, how did she find her way? In Sarah’s words, “I got my start by giving myself a start.” Sarah started life with a great deal to overcome. She was the first child in her family not born into slavery. By the time she was 8 years old, both her parents had died. She married at 14,
became a mother at 17, and a widow at 20. She spent 18 years working in a laundry. It was during this time that she adopted the name “Madam C.J. Walker” and began selling homemade hair care products to other African American women. Her first product was called “Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower.” She later expanded the business by hiring salespeople, called “hair culturalists,” but kept strict control over her brand. She spent a great
deal of time training her representatives on how to sell comport themselves. It was important to her that the world see dignified, elegant black women, who cared about themselves and others. She eventually employed almost 10,000 “Walker Agents.” At every step along the way, Madam Walker worked hard to help others. She was especially generous with organizations such as
the YMCA and the NAACP. In 1916, Madam Walker moved to a wealthy New York enclave and built the home of her dreams, a 34-room mansion named Villa Lewaro. She hosted brilliant parties where leaders and creatives of the African-American community met and discussed their future. Many of her guests
were the brilliant minds behind the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.
At the time of her death in 1919, her estate was worth nearly $7 million in today’s dollars.
Elizabeth Blackwell (1821 – 1910)
Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to earn a medical degree in the U.S., was an ardent social reformer, with a surprising lack of affinity for medicine. In fact, Elizabeth “hated everything connected to the body, and could not bear the sight of a medical book”. She chose the field of medicine for a very personal reason — Elizabeth watched a dear friend suffer for years with a painful illness and finally succumb to it. As her suffering increased, the friend often remarked
that her sickness was made more painful by the fact that all her doctors were men. Elizabeth traveled a rough road in her search for a medical degree. She was ostracized by her colleagues, teachers, and townspeople. However, she never veered from her path and graduated first in her class from Geneva Medical School in upstate New York. After graduation, Elizabeth was unable to find employment in any medical establishment, so she and her sister opened the New York Dispensary for Poor Women and Children. While her colleagues saw medicine as individual, and sickness as puzzles in the body to be
solved, Elizabeth had a grand plan — to use education and hygienic practices and to empower women.
Ching Shih (1775 – 1844)
Ching Shih was always willing to leverage. She was a prostitute on a floating brothel and wouldn’t leave to marry a patron/pirate head until he promised her that she would be his partner and advisor. He was true to his word and their pirate fleet prospered. Upon his death six years later, she took control of the largest pirate fleet that has ever existed. She created strict rules but enforced them fairly. Pirates kept 20% of their plunder and the rest went into the collective. Pirates who treated women and children cruelly were put to death.
As with outlaw life today, the life of a pirate was usually short and violent. Living to an advanced age and dying peacefully was not typical. Again, Shih saw an opportunity where others did not. Pirates were so disruptive to lawful trade that Shih was able to negotiate with the government and keep most of her loot. She “retired” to the mainland and, in her later years, managed a
gambling house. She died in 1844 at 69 years of age.
Anne Royall (1769-1854)
Born Anne Newport in Baltimore, MD, she grew up on the frontier of western Pennsylvania and later in the mountains of western Virginia. At age 18, she kept house for the Revolutionary War veteran Major William Royall. Major Royall took an interest in his young servant and they enjoyed discussing the books in his extensive library. When she was 28 and he was in his 50s, they married. At the time of the Major’s death, 15 years later, Anne portion of his estate was
contested by his relatives. After a fight that lasted 5 years, Anne lost her large inheritance. Anne travelled around the United States, selling subscriptions to her writing. Her words were biting and critical. She found her true life’s work by exposing graft, corruption, nepotism and, most of all, the rising influence of those who didn’t want separation between Church and State. Anne’s writing earned her some very powerful enemies. Her writings were burned and she was
taunted and vilified wherever she travelled. In 1824, she marched to Washington and sat on John Quincy Adams’ clothes while he was bathing in the Potomac in order to force him to speak with her. She became the first female journalist to interview a sitting president.
One evening in Washington in 1829, Anne’s house was surrounded by her enemies both praying for her conversion and pelting her windows with stones. When she lost her temper and cursed at them, she was arrested and charged with being a public nuisance and “a common scold.” In spite of having the Secretary of War and the Librarian of Congress testify on her behalf, she became the first person in North America convicted of being a scold. Anne’s $10
fine was paid by some supporters. For the rest of her life, she made a living by publishing newspapers Paul Pry and The Huntress, as well as writing books and articles about free speech and anti-federalism. She died in 1854 at the age of 85.
Sacagawea (1788 – 1812 or 1844!)
Her name is famous. A great deal was written about her during her lifetime, but little of the woman is known definitively. No facts of her life are without doubt. It is believed that she was the daughter of a Shoshone chief, born in 1788 Lemhi County, Idaho. When she was 12, she was captured by an enemy tribe and sold to a French-Canadian trapper, where she became one of his wives. In 1804, while pregnant with her first child, she and her husband joined the Lewis and Clark expedition. She was invaluable to the success of the expedition.
After the expedition, she gave birth to a second child, remained with her husband, and died at 25 years old at a Fort near current-day Bismark, North Dakota, though other records report that she lived to the age of 95.
Sally Ride (1951-2012)
Sally Ride was born and raised in Encino, CA. She became the first American woman in space and spent her life inspiring a love of science to young girls.
The last thing in the world that Sally wanted was to be in the public eye. As a child she was passionate, athletic, driven, and studious. She was an excellent tennis player and was urged by Billie Jean King to become a professional. Instead she pursued her second passion—science. When she was finishing her graduate studies and planning what her next move would be, she
answered a newspaper ad from NASA. She trained hard physically and mentally to become an astronaut. Women were denied admittance into the astronaut program until 1978. When it became news that she would become the first American woman in space, she was appalled at some of the attendant silliness. Talk show host Johnny Carson laughed about Ride being late for liftoff because she wouldn’t find a purse to match her flight suit. Journalists asked ridiculous questions. A cosmonaut welcomed her to the space station with the news that the kitchen was waiting for her. Sally tolerated the silliness and said, “It’s too bad this is such a big deal. It’s too bad our society isn’t further along.”
Sally made two trips to space before the space ship tragedies of 1986 when the Challenger exploded 73 seconds after takeoff. President Ronald Reagan appointed her to the investigation panel charged with studying the Challenger crash and advising NASA on the future of the Space Program. For the rest of her life, Sally was an academic and a passionate advocate for engaging young women in science and technology, engineering and math (STEM). She died in
2012, after a struggle with pancreatic cancer. It was only after her death that it became public she had been in a 27 year relationship with her (female) business partner, Tam O’Shaughnessy.
The Matilda Effect
