MAE JEMISON……who made history in 1992 when she became the first Black woman in space….. after her groundbreaking flight aboard Endeavour….Jemison continued to work for NASA as an astronaut for 6 years…..with her newfound platform…..she left NASA to educate others about how space technology can improve life on earth…..and take up initiatives to “ensure that all people know that they have a place in this world”…..a role model and inspiration both in and out of orbit…..Jemison firmly believes that “everyone should benefit from the bounty of this planet and its resources, not just those already well positioned….solutions, technologies, and systems are more sustainable and beneficial…..when they are built drawing upon the full range of human perspective, skills, experiences, and talents.” Dolores Huerta
ADVOCATING ON BEHALF OF WORKERS FOR 70 YEARS……Dolores Huerta…..is one of the most influential labor activists of the 20th century…..and a celebrated leader of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement…….Huerta’s activism was ignited when she taught school in rural California in the 1950s…..and witnessed how many farm-raised children came to school hungry…..this inspired her to help improve the lives of farmers and farm workers….in 1962, Huerta and César Chávez founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA)…..the predecessor of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW)…..she later helped found the Coalition of Labor Union Women…..despite facing sexism and the press downplaying her role, Huerta helped organize the 1965 Delano strike…..of 5,000 grape workers and was the lead negotiator in the workers’ contract that followed…..in 1973, Huerta led another consumer boycott of grapes that resulted in the ground-breaking California Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975…..which allowed farm workers to form unions and bargain for better wages and conditions…..at age 95, she hasn’t stopped her pursuit for a better world……working to elect more Latinos and women to political office and championing women’s issues.
IN MANY AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL NATIONS…..elder women are the living libraries of their people….they guard the stories, laws and “songlines”…..sacred paths that map the land through memory and song…..their wisdom shapes how communities care for the earth….raise children, and honor ancestors….while keeping the culture alive across countless generations.
VICTORIA WOODHULL…..made history when she became the first woman to run for President of the United States in 1872…..after being nominated by the Equal Rights Party…..
in another trailblazing turn…..Woodhull and her sister were the first women stockbrokers on Wall Street…..and operated the Woodhull, Claflin, and Company brokerage…..these sisters used their financial success to further rights for women, workers, and the poor, publishing Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly…..a newspaper that supported progressive political reforms…..ahead of her time, Woodhull was a major advocate of the free love movement, and sought to destigmatize divorce…..so that it was easier for wives to leave abusive husbands……Woodhull kept making history when she became the first woman to testify before a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives…..urging them to take action on women’s suffrage.
BLACK COWGIRLS HELPED SHAPE THE AMERICAN WEST…..Daughters of formerly enslaved people….they carved out their independence…..by roping, branding, herding…..and riding the same long punishing trails as their male counterparts…..they faced danger, mastered every skill and even competed in rodeos……proving toughness knew no gender or color…..among them was Ms. Mary Fields….or better known as….. “Stagecoach Mary”….she was 6ft tall….carried a rifle…..and didn’t take any junk from anybody…..she delivered the U.S. mail through snow, storms and outlaws…..the West was not just built by cowboys….it was built by the strength and spirit of Black women who refused to be erased.
IN ANCIENT INDIA’S VEDIC ERA….the philosopher Gargi Vachaknavi…..orchestrated one of history’s most profound intellectual assaults….during a royal debate….she relentlessly questioned the sage Yajnavalkya…..on the fundamental fabric of reality…..culminating in her asking….. “What is the weave of the universe?”……her fearless inquiry forced the great sage to reveal his ultimate doctrine of the indestructible Brahman…..but only after warning that pressing further would make her head shatter……this was a testament to the sheer power and disruptive potential of her intellect.
NETTIE STEVENS…..didn’t just find sex chromosomes in 1905….she discovered that sex is determined by a single….specific chromosome…..her work with mealworms proved that a tiny….often dismissed Y chromosome…..was the genetic trigger for maleness….revolutionizing biology by showing a fundamental trait…..was written in DNA….not by environment.
IN 19-CENTURY PERSIA….the poet Táhirih….a renowned Bahaí scholar…..altered the struggle for gender equality in a single defiant act….during a pivotal 1848 conference….she dramatically appeared without her veil, declaring….. “This day is the day of festivity and universal rejoicing”…..this unprecedented public unveiling was a theological earthquake….symbolically shattering centuries of tradition….she was executed in 1852….her final prophetic words were…. “You can kill me….but you will never stop the emancipation of women.”
GREEK DANCE TRADITIONS….began long before Athens….their roots can be traced to Minoan Crete in the 2nd millennium BC……where women performed vibrant, circular dances for religious ceremonies…..these expressive movements were passed to the Mycenaeans…..becoming a cornerstone of classical Hellenic culture.
IN 1960’s FRANCE…..Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex”…..was indeed placed on the Vatican’s index of forbidden books…..this was not merely a condemnation of its radical feminism…..but a specific rejection of its existentialist core…..the Church declared its central argument…..that “one is not born, but rather becomes a woman”…..as heretical…..this challenged the divine, biological essentialism central to Catholic doctrine…..making the book a profound threat to the very concept of a God-given natural order.