Women History Month: Inspiring Heroines

March is women history month, and March 8 is International Women’s Day. We all have our heroines. And yes, they had to overcome obstacles. Of course, each woman’s idols differ depending on their own preferences. In this post, I share my heroines, famous or not so famous, and the odds these women faced when following their dreams. Check them out. May be you add the one or other lady to your list of inspiring women?

 

 

March is Women History Month

In honor of women and Women History Month, I will devote the overall theme of my posts in March to women in history. Typically, those in power write the history. Sort like the winner takes it all. Historically, in the Western World, those holding the power had been mostly aristocrats and churchmen. Consequently, there is a strong bias in documented history towards a focus on men and their perspective.

 

Inspiring Women Who Impressed Me When I Was a Kid

Our neighbor was a school teacher. In contrast to the majority in Germany, she wasn’t blond, blue eyed with a round face, small mouth, and big boobs. Blond, blue eyes, round face, small mouth and big boobs were still the elements of beauty in Post-Nazi West Germany. Instead, she had brown eyes and hair, small breasts, and an oval face. I admired her for her way to dress and her high plateau shoes and heels. She drove a Manta sports car and was an icon and role model for the six or seven-year-old me. Little Nicole wanted to look as great as this woman when becoming an adult.

Except dancing and soccer, I never was much interested in sports, especially not track and field’s sport. However, during the 1972 Olympic Games, the high jumper Ulrike Meyfarth impressed me. She was just six years older than I was and became the youngest women Olympic champion ever in her discipline. Interestingly, later she also became the oldest ever when winning the Olympics again in 1984.

Another celebrity related to the 1972 Olympic Games was Sylvia Sommerlath, who worked there as a translator. She met Carl Gustav of Sweden at the games, dated him for years, and finally became Queen of Sweden. As a kid, I admired her long brown hair and beautiful face, not that she was dating a King. I wanted long hair, but my mom would always cut it because brown hair shows on tiles, while the light long blond hair of my sister would show!

Just a fun fact about Sylvia: Did you know that she is the longest serving Swedish Queen? The title was formerly hold by Sophia of Nassau.

 

 

 

Women I Admired in My Teens and Tweens

Miss Twiggie aka Lesley Hornby. I loved her thin body, flat boobs, androgynous appearance and her big eyes. Since my mom kept “chopping” my hair, I had the same boyish short haircut. She sorts of looked like an older twin of me except for her blond hair and long, long lashes. I also loved the clothes she was wearing.

 

Fun fact: Did you know that she achieved this signature lashes by applying three false eyelashes?

 

 

Michèle Mouton was my heroine because she showed that women can also be successful driving rallys.

My German readers know Beate Uhse probably for her entrepreneurship and being the first to start sex shops. However, what makes her a heroine in my eyes is that she followed her dream to become a pilot. At age 18, she had her pilot’s license. In 1938, she passed her stunt pilot exam. She placed 2^nd and 3^rd in flight competitions. At age 19, she became a test pilot for the Bücker aircraft company. During WWII, she ferried aircrafts like the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka, Messerschmitt Bf 109 and 110, Focke-Wulf Fw 190, and Messerschmitt Me 262. At the end of the war, she fled the bombarded Berlin together with her injured son, and nanny in a Siebel Fh 104 plane, she had never flown before. Upon landing in Leck, North Friesland, British units captured her.

I also admired the women who flew aircrafts from the Lower 48s to Fairbanks during WWII. Because women weren’t allowed in combat zones, male pilots flew the rest of the route to Russia. However, these women faced the same harsh weather conditions over Alaska and the accompanying dangers than their male colleagues. The Far East of Siberia wasn’t a war action place at that time. These flights occurred within the framework of the land-lease contract.

Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space. She orbited Earth 48 times in 3 days on board of her capsule Vostok 6. Back then, this time was longer than the time of all male astronauts together.

My Hero Women Scientists

Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850-1891) was declined admission at University Berlin because of her gender. She studied in private at Göttingen and later Berlin. Her work on differential equation got high recogniztion. She became the first woman in Europe to earn a doctorate in mathematics and a full professorship. She taught at University Stockholm.

 

 

Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958) used X-ray technology to study the molecular structure of coal, viruses and DNA. She showed that the DNA has a helical shape. 1962 Noble Prize awardees Watson and Crick had confirmed her findings. She didn’t receive the prize because she already had deceased.

When I was in high school, our history teacher taught us that Marie Skłodowska aka Marie Curie and her sister had made a deal to support each other to study in France. At that time, women couldn’t enroll in Polish and many other European universities. Her sis went first, while Marie worked in Warsaw, Poland. Upon graduation of her sis, she moved to Paris to study physics. Note I never found a source that confirmed this part of the story.

However, there are many sources of the following. In Paris, she met her future husband Pierre Curie, who also worked in the research of radioactivity. They won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics. Pierre died being overrun by a horse drawn carriage in 1906. Marie continued their studies and won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of radium and polonium. This award made her the first person ever who won two Nobel Prizes! This achievement made her my heroine.

It wasn’t until much later in my life that I learned that in 1911, she had an affair with the married physicist, Paul Langevin. His wife Jeanne provided incriminating letters from Marie to Paul. Knowing well the French culture Jeanne Langevin must have been known that Marie would get the critic. At those times, there was the attitude that it’s ok for a man to have an affair. Both stories broke while she was attending the Solvay physics conference in Brussels.

Newsletter published like sale numbers. Therefore, the “sex affair” was more interesting than her scientific achievements. She also was falsely called a Jewess. Bertram Boltwood, who was also a radiochemist, took the opportunity to state that “she is exactly what I always thought she was, a detestable idiot.” This newspaper witch hunt pushed her into a personal crisis. Albert Einstein supported her in these hard times with an uplifting letter telling her “don’t let the bastards get you down”.

 

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. – Marie Curie #quote #femalescientist

 

 

I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy. – Marie Curie #quote #womanscientist

 

Lise Meitner worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin on research of nuclear technology. Here she led the research including significant experiments, and calculated the energy release that finally meant the discovery of nuclear fission. Her problems started in March 1938, when Nazi Germany and Austria became unified. While being Austrian and an Alien had protected her before, now she was “German” overnight. Her colleague Otto Hahn gave her a family heirloom diamond ring as financial support. Supported by him, and Dutch physicists Dirk Koster and Adriaan Fokker, she escaped via the Netherlands on July 13, 1938. Later, on a winter walk with her nephew Otto Frisch, they found the explanation for the observations and called the process nuclear fission. In February 1939, the paper was published. Instead of her and her nephew, Otto Hahn received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of nuclear fission.

Science makes people reach selflessly for truth and objectivity; it teaches people to accept reality, with wonder and admiration, not to mention the deep awe and joy that the natural order of things brings to the true scientist. – Lise Meitner

 

 

Why are these women scientists my heroines? They stood their man as women in a men’s world, and started a path for women in sciences. Incredible women who plowed the road in space sciences were Katherine Johnson, Gladys Mae West, and Mae Jemison. More about these Black Women.

 

Gender Specific Education Was/Is Our Largest Enemy

Recall, when in 1988 Gertrude Elion won the Noble Prize, she said

Nothing worthwhile comes easily … In my day I was told women didn’t go into chemistry.

Despite these women showed that science isn’t a male thing, they hit glass ceilings. They also had a lot of obstacles in their way that their male colleagues hadn’t to navigate. The cultural upbringing and gender-specific education were just two of them. In the 1960s and 1970s, science was still considered a thing for boys, not girls. My Mom couldn’t understand that I wanted to watch the Moon landing. I was nearly glued to the TV during Apollo 13. The small window angle for re-entry, and the navigational logistic involved in the mission fascinated me (more on how NASA inspired me).

In middle school, the girls were having crafting classes (crochet, embroidery, sewing), while the boys should have had carpenter classes. However, due to the school lack of teachers for carpeting and cooking classes, we girls had only 2 hours of classes more to take than the boys. Why did not all of us take at least the crafting class? There are many reasons why you should learn to sew, cook or doing minor repairs.

In high school, I was the only woman in my chemistry class. My teacher forbid me to do any of the experiments saying

 

You could burn your hair.

Do I have to say that my classmates had hair too. None of them was blade.

When I was in college, female students had limited research opportunities. More on what it meant studying meteorology as a woman in the 1980s. Furthermore, women couldn’t perform research in Antarctica until the late 1980s. Then, a team of just women went there.

One is not born, but rather becomes a woman. – Simone de Beauvoir

 

Inspiring Women of the 1990s

Katherine Ann Moss aka Kate Moss was my favorite model. She pulled the heroin chic fashion trend off like no other. Her perfectly imperfect look seemed so right. I still love how she throws outfits together.

 

 

My favorite female actress and musician were Julia Roberts and Annie Lennox, respectively.

 

Modern Heroines

Lyn Slate because of her courage to wear what she wants despite being in Higher Education and research.

Tererai Trent because she showed that even when all odds are against you, you can reach your dreams.

……

Educate a man, you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation.

 

 

Concluding Remarks on Inspiring Women

Of course, this list of inspiring women is incomplete. There are many other women who have inspired me. However, these women have things in common.

 

They followed their dreams, believed that they can do it despite of many odds. They looked and thought different from what society accepted and/or expected.

 

Even though it wasn’t their goal, they helped to change societal perceptions on women and their abilities; their dreams opened opportunities for women of later generations. Thus, following your dreams isn’t egocentric. As a side effect, it helps others too. What are your dreams?

Who were/are the inspiring women (except for family members) in your life? Just curious.

 

 

References

Editors, C.R., 2018. Marie Curie: The Life and Legacy of the Legendary Scientist Who Became the First Woman to Win a Nobel Prize. Amazon.

Sime, R.L., 1997. Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics, University of California Press

Smithsonian, 2019. Women: Our Story. DK Publishing, New York.

Trent, T., 2017. The awakened woman. Enliven.

 

Featured image shows Hope Solo.

 

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