Most Influential Women?

[FizzFuzz]

Poll question: Most Influential Women?

As a little breath of fresh air for the feminists on board, I'd like to offer this alternative to the numerous "who's the prettiest/sexiest/jiggliest girl?" polls.

I learned alot when I googled around for this.

Uh oh, I used up all the spaces--who knew there were so many important women out there??? :)

Add your own!!!!

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

1. emma goldman

and my answer to the prettiest poll of kathleen hanna works in this poll as well

[flamingyouth]

2. Thank you, Margaret Sanger

:thumbsup:

[blackcat77]

3. I could never vote for Sanger.

She wanted to use birth control to stop undesiraables from reproducing.

[FizzFuzz]

4. uh oh I didn't know that part

:(

Well, she was a product of her time and economic class, but she still did immeasurable good in spite of that unfortunate aspect.

[mike_c]

5. I couldn't vote, there are simply too many....

Like choosing a "favorite song." Although Marie Curie ought to be mentioned.

[FizzFuzz]

6. so mention her!

;) :thumbsup:

I'm having trouble choosing just one myself, but figure I don't have to, since I made up the poll! Nyeh-nyeh.

and no I'm not shamelessly kicking my own post so stop saying that

[fudge stripe cookays]

7. I was very impressed this weekend...

when Leticia Van De Putte spoke to us at our pro-choice caucus at the state convention. What an inspiring lady! She was ready to choke up while she spoke to us about all things choice; I could hear it in her voice.

For any of you not in Texas, she is a Latina state senator, who was also the head Killer D in the group that went to New Mexico last summer.

I liked her before, but now, she is a goddess. I SOOOO wish I was in her district.

FSC

[fudge stripe cookays]

8. Since you;ve got EC Stanton,

don't forget Alice Paul and the other Iron Jawed Angels. :-)

[billbuckhead]

10. Unfortunately it's probably Ayn Rand or Claire Booth Luce

[fudge stripe cookays]

11. Ah Ayn Rand...

every neo-conservative's idol.

Every Republican I know jacks off to her picture at night.

[FizzFuzz]

15. thanks! yes, I tried to pick the one woman who seemed to me to be

the biggest driving force. I keep forgetting to find "The Woman's Bible" I've been wanting to read that. I fell in love with her when I read her biography.

[2cents]

9. Rosa Parks n/t

[jobycom]

12. Helen Keller -- way cooler than you are told

She didn't just vanish after the Miracle Worker stage of her life. She was a political activist for suffrage, for health care, and for socialism, which is why she is ignored these days. She was a pacifist who opposed our involvement in WWI.

Link to writings: http://archive.8m.net/keller.htm

Quotes--

"I had once believed that we are all masters of our fate - that we could mould our lives into any form we pleased. I had overcome deafness and blindness sufficiently to be happy, and I supposed that anyone could come out victorious if he threw himself valiantly into life's struggle. But as I went more and more about the country I learned that I had spoken with assurance on a subject I knew little about. I forgot that I owed my success partly to the advantages of my birth and environment. Now, however, I learned that the power to rise in the world is not within the reach of everyone."

She has another great quote explaining how blindness is the result of social injustice, since the poor were struck with impairments more often than the rich, but I can't find it.

[FizzFuzz]

14. oh how could I forget Helen Keller?

I used to be obsessed with her when I was a kid. Part of the inspiration I think for the field I'm in now.

Thanks!!!!!!!!!

[FizzFuzz]

13. Yikes that list was all white

dammit I'm ashamed of myself

Human Rights
Harriet Tubman
Coretta Scott King
Sojourner Truth
Mary Church Terrell

Medicine
M Joycelyn Jones Elders
Grace Ogot (Kenya, Uganda, England)
Mae C. Jemison (Astronaut)

Gov't, Politics
Shirley Chisolm
Mary Frances Berry
Barbara Jordan (House of Representatives '72-78. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, she earned national attention for her speech in favor of impeaching Nixon. Gee, wish she were here today....)

This is just a very few, and I'm having trouble with some of the links. Computer is being real slow too.

[Fenris]

16. A kick for FizzFuzz.

I vote for Maggie Sanger.

[worksux]

17. here we are-Hillary, yes!

like I said on another thread, she is the only person-male or female that the Republicans fear. She's smart, classy, not a sell out and all you gotta do is look at Elisabeth Dole (ewwww) and know why the Repugs are scared. Can you imagine Dubya in a debate with Hillary? bwahahahahahahah!

[FizzFuzz]

18. now that is something I'd really like to see!

did I say welcome to DU yet?

[tjwash]

19. Eleanor Roosevelt.

She pretty much ran the country the last few years of FDR's life. One could almost say she was the first woman president.

[NightTrain]

20. Beat me to it!

:hi:

[tjwash]

21. I couldn't believe she wasn't top of the list!

:hi: back atchya

[HEyHEY]

22. Oldie but a goodie - Rosa Parks

That lady had guts.

[swag]

23. a few - not necessarily popularly influential, but brilliant

Joyce Carol Oates - novelist, essayist
Katha Pollitt - reporter, critic, columnist
Susan Sontag - essayist
Kathleen Hall Jamieson - political scientist, author
Mary Gaitskill - novelist

[FizzFuzz]

25. and..

Pauline Kael -Movie Reviewer, New Yorker
Katharine Graham-President and publisher of The Washington Post
Maya Angelou
Toni Morrison
Margaret Mead
Karen Horney-Psychiatrist. She was first to posit that psychology is shaped not only by instinctual drives, but by social influences on the individual as well.
Zora Neale Hurston
Margaret Atwood- Handmaid's Tale!!

[NightTrain]

24. How about some of the great female musical talents of the past century?

A very short list, in more-or-less chronological order:

Maria Callas
Bessie Smith
Josephine Baker
Billie Holiday
Ella Fitzgerald
Mahalia Jackson
Clara Ward
Patti Page
Ruth Brown
Rosemary Clooney
LaVern Baker
Wanda Jackson
The Chantels
Patsy Cline
The Shirelles
Darlene Love
Barbra Streisand
Carole King
Dionne Warwick
Gladys Knight
The Supremes
Judy Collins
Loretta Lynn
Aretha Franklin
Patti LaBelle
Patti Smith
Donna Summer
The Runaways
X-Ray Specks
Joan Jett
Queen Latifah

[FizzFuzz]

28. and Missy Elliot!!! Love how she overcame the studios

that didn't want to promote her because she "didn't have the right look" (meaning she wasn't pretty enough for them to waste their time on. They only interested in baby ho's) She is an incredible talent and business woman too.

Patti Smith I love love love her..so cool and tough. Genius.

Gwen Stefani!!!!
Blondie--she was the pioneer of punk
Souxie and the Banshees--more punk leadership
JANIS

[Laszlo_Hollyfeld]

26. Maya Angelou

[slinkerwink]

27. definitely gloria steinem!

[Anarcho-Socialist]

29. Mary Woolstonecraft

She was a Feminist a 100 years before people knew it existed.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

30. Have to go with Sanger...

Whatever her role in the eugenics debate, we wouldn't be where we are today without reproductive freedom.

Thanks for diverting from "who's hot, who's not" threads...:hi:

[FizzFuzz]

31. you betcha!

everywhere ya look, its men doing saying thinking important things, while the important things women do sink into oblivion the way this thread seemed to be doing for awhile. I wouldn't mind the T&A so much, being bi, if it weren't so friggin unbalanced. Its the only way so many folks seem to be able to even conceive of women--in terms of their looks (fuckability is what that actually boils down to). So I just want to speak up as often as possible to say HEY!! That's not all we are! I do the same thing in real life too. Gets some good points across sometimes, and other times it gets me in trouble!

It is my sworn duty to speak up as often as possible when women get trivialized. Really, I'm surprised at how often I see hostile reactions here trying to trivialize me when I get into some feminist response. Or blaming me for being angry, when I am responding reasonably and with some restraint, to some guy who slagged me. Needless to say, the slag throwers escape notice.

Nah, its not always that bad, not all the guys here are that bad, to be honest. Just some of them.

[WindRavenX]

32. A vote for Hillary

She has been a model for young women to become educated and get into politics.
She is my idol, and I feel very happy to have met her :)

[Solon]

33. Most influencial would be the 19th century sufferagettes....

Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, and of course the honorable Fredrick Douglass. All fighters for the civil rights of ALL. Those are only the ones that come to mind, plus all the millions of other women and men who fought for equality over the past 2 centuries. Without them, many of the ones listed above wouldn't have had the chance to have the opportunity they had.

[RoyGBiv]

34. Other: Betty Friedan

She has been far more influential than Steinem as an individual. Steinem herself credits Friedan with the modern beginnings of the women's liberation movement, which begs the question of whether without Friedan, Steinem has the same kind of influence.

Along with Friedan, there's the Grimke Sisters who pre-dated and whose work was influential upon Stanton and others that followed. They were also far more inclusive than Stanton and accomplished much in a time and a place for which their lives were literally in danger.

Name recognition doesn't necessarily equate to influence.

[FizzFuzz]

36. thank you!

I learn so much here! :hi:

And a kick for the day folks

[RoyGBiv]

37. _The Feminine Mystique_

If you haven't read The Feminine Mystique by Ms. Friedan, drop everything you are doing, right now, and run, do not walk, to the nearest library and check this out. Right now. GO! NOW!!!

:-)

Okay, seriously, if you haven't read it, you should. This book changed the world.

[wickerwoman]

35. For me personally or for all of society?

For me:
Simone de Beauvoir
Marion Zimmer Bradley (not just a brilliant author but also established a press to get women's writing out there)
Lucille Clifton
Virginia Wolff

For all society:
Any woman out there doing what she loves because she loves it. I know dozens of women who aren't famous and never will be but sent an amazing example for everyone they meet

[FizzFuzz]

38. shameless kick for the early evening folks

hey what can I say, I'm kicking my poll

[cedahlia]

39. Kathleen Hannah

of Bikini Kill and Courtney Love. Yes, I know Love's been a bit of a mess here lately, but she really did influence me a lot in the 90s as young woman in high school. Hers and Kathleen's kick ass attitude and the whole riot grrrl thing really meant a lot to me during my teen years.

Other honorable mentions of awesome, personally influential female musicians would be:

Kat Bjelland and Lori Barbero of Babes in Toyland
Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth
and of course I can't forget Ms. Tori Amos!

All of those women have profoundly impacted my life and shaped me into the woman I am today. Don't you feel sorry for girls coming of age today? Who are their strong female role models? Britney, Hillary Duff, or Lindsey Lohan? Ugh...somehow those poptarts just don't measure up.

[Spider Jerusalem]

40. In what field?

Can't pick just one person, really. So...

Eleanor Roosevelt
Coco Chanel
Sylvia Plath
Gertrude Stein
Emmeline Pankhurst
Marie Curie
Rachel Carson
Rosa Parks
Mother Teresa
Margaret Thatcher (an honest choice, not a political one...don't care for her much, but she was rather influential)

[smirkymonkey]

41. I was getting tired of "hot babe" thing too

thanks for posting this! All good choices and so many more...Lets hope first woman, Theresa Heinz Kerry has a positive impact once she doesn't have to play the sweet, compliant, "don't freak people out with your strength & individuality" little lady behind the candidate.

[FizzFuzz]

44. HA!!! GRIN!! Thats the truth!!

I think the sexism dials have been turned up in this country. And how perfect that we have a perfect Stepford Wife in Hienz Kerry's place right now. God, Central Casting couldn't have done better.

Wanna say more here on the subject of sexism, smirkymonkey but I have to run to work. If I can later I'll drop you an IM, if that's alright.

[smirkymonkey]

45. Sure - look forward to hearing from you!

I always appreciate your thoughtful posts :)

[FizzFuzz]

47. Hi smirky!

Thanks, that is really really nice to hear! I put alot of thought into them, thats for sure, aside from the silly ones. Sending ya an IM....

More Influential Women:
Molly Ivins
Arianna Huffington

They were on the front lines telling us the truth about Shrub and the Pigs at the Trough.

[JanMichael]

42. Where the hell is Eleanore Roosevelt?!

?

[JanMichael]

43. What about HellenFreakin'Keller???

Oh my GAWD?

[Cerridwen]

46. A couple more for the list

Audre Lorde http://www.lambda.net/~maximum/lorde.html

bell hooks http://www.shambhalasun.com/Archives/Columnists/Hooks/hooks.htm

[nuxvomica]

48. It was tough but I had to vote for Rachel Carson

She wasn't just an environmentalist, she practically invented the movement. A great woman who's courage and eloquence may ultimately have saved all of our lives. Silent Spring should be required reading in high schools.

[FizzFuzz]

49. thank you!

:pals: