International Women's Day
- Thread starter nightshade
- Start date
GothicBuffy
Slayer
TriBel
Scooby
Fuffy
We Don't Need The Law, We Are The Law
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2015
- Messages
- 2,880
Honestly, I think that the world needs more women like @Anyanka Bunny Slayer , a rare breed indeed.
Of course not, she kicks vampie ass while quipping away 🙂
ILLYRIAN
But did she mean Buffy from the tv show or Buffy Summers from the BB?
No need to give her a big head 😛 But she certainly has a personality that no one can match! <3
I don't know who I would say inspires me, there's a lot of women that I think have done amazing things, but I don't really connect with anyone in particular.
ILLYRIAN
Thing is, 'Give U s A Kiss' didn't specify if, 'a rare breed' infers her as good or not!
Professor Walsh
How about the woman in your banner?
Happy Women's Day to all the lovely women on this board, and the angry crazy ones too!
The women who inspire me are . . . Buffy Summers of course, but also JK Rowling, Julie Bindel, Kara Dansky, Rosie Duffield, Marguerite Stern, Beth Stelzer, Kellie Jay Keen, Meghan Murphy, Keira Bell, Joanna Cherry, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, MK Fain, Laila Mickelwaite, Dr Kathleen Stock, Dr Jane Claire Jones, Maya Forstater, Janice Turner . . . honestly the list is endless. All the brave women still fighting for our sex based rights, they inspire me every day.
The women who inspire me are . . . Buffy Summers of course, but also JK Rowling, Julie Bindel, Kara Dansky, Rosie Duffield, Marguerite Stern, Beth Stelzer, Kellie Jay Keen, Meghan Murphy, Keira Bell, Joanna Cherry, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, MK Fain, Laila Mickelwaite, Dr Kathleen Stock, Dr Jane Claire Jones, Maya Forstater, Janice Turner . . . honestly the list is endless. All the brave women still fighting for our sex based rights, they inspire me every day.
gwenogjones
I was gonna say JK Rowling but couldn't be bothered with the bunfight - you're way braver than me! Add yourself to that list!
ILLYRIAN
What about Darla?
Nix
🤪
Cohen
Hellhound
Kristen Bell is such a paragon of good. Like, her whole being is all about being a good person and lifting others up and caring for others. I absolutely adore her.
HowiMetdaSlayer
𝕔𝕠𝕔𝕠𝕒 𝕒𝕕𝕕𝕚𝕔𝕥 ☕️
gwenogjones
Scooby
And Baroness Nicholson! She got kicked off the judging panel of the booker prize (which was set up by her late husband) because of her defence of women's rights but she's still fighting. The recent scene in the House of Lords where they all stood up to be counted and said the right word for a person who gives birth is 'mother' wouldn't have happened without her.
And gone but never forgotten - Magdelene Berns.
God yes the Baroness has been fantastic. And how could I forget Magdelene Berns, an absolute powerhouse who won't ever be forgotten. So many brave women.
r2dh2
Never go for the kill when you can go for the pain
My mom and my grandma. I come from a Latin-American country, my family comes from a rural area and my grandmother had to raise three young kids alone after my grandfather left her. She cleaned houses to support them. My mom was the oldest kid and at 6 years old, she’d take care of her siblings. They grew up in extreme poverty. After lot of work, she graduated as a doctor in her late 20s. And she refuses to retire despite covid.
Ghost Boy
Scooby
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2018
- Messages
- 903
Frances Oldham Kelsey.
She is a true hero IMO.
She was a pharmaceutical reviewer for the American FDA (Food and Drug Administration).
While many other countries allowed the drug Thalidomide to go on sale, she blocked it's sale in the USA because she thought the research and testing hadn't been done properly. By doing so, she saved thousands of babies from being born with defects that the drug causes.
She is a true hero IMO.
She was a pharmaceutical reviewer for the American FDA (Food and Drug Administration).
While many other countries allowed the drug Thalidomide to go on sale, she blocked it's sale in the USA because she thought the research and testing hadn't been done properly. By doing so, she saved thousands of babies from being born with defects that the drug causes.
Professor Walsh
I never heard of her. Thank you for pointing her out, I will mention her when I use thalidomide as an example in next months chemistry topic.
Nix
🤪
The women of my family on my Mum's side. Sitting down is my Grandma, Standing is my Auntie and bubba is my Mum... All sadly passed now but were amazing in many different ways. All suffering with different health conditions and all who fought each day to survive in their own way. My Auntie lost her fight but she fought long and hard for a good while.
On a lighter note I think my Grandma has had too many baileys!
Mods if it's not ok I won't be offended if it gets taken down but I will take the cake back.... jokes
Definitely a whole chunk of the female actors from Supernatural, I've seen so many Ladies Night panels where they get down to serious shit, while also goofing off a bit, where a lot of the male panels just does lots of goofing off (which there is nothing wrong with, of course) 😛
Having recently (as I've mentioned before) downloaded and become addicted to Tik Tok, there are some great women on there that are open about certain issues in a way that really speaks to me. I can't really point to one specific person, though, and go 'there, that's who inspires me', sorry to say.
Having recently (as I've mentioned before) downloaded and become addicted to Tik Tok, there are some great women on there that are open about certain issues in a way that really speaks to me. I can't really point to one specific person, though, and go 'there, that's who inspires me', sorry to say.
Ethan Reigns
Scooby
Sally Ride.
She was America's first female astronaut and since she had to operate the Canadarm, she had to be among the top 1 percentile in patience. Some equipment like a good torque wrench or a nice woodworker's plane are pleasures to operate. I have used the simulator for the shuttle arm and it was the most miserable piece of equipment imaginable. Every move has to be slow because the arm is too fragile to move anything fast and you have to use thrusters to counter the back force on the shuttle.
She would be a perfect actress to play Marcie Ross because she was pretty much the invisible woman - I wouldn't have recognized but she was in the cafeteria lineup right behind me in her spacesuit because it was too much of a bother to take it off for lunch and put it back on again. I thought she was invisible but a colleague I was working with at the time thought she was hot because fitness was his prime criterion for beauty.
I sometimes think of her as Willow - she was married for a time but then came out and lived with her partner until her death at age 61. She and her partner were nationally ranked in tennis.
She was America's first female astronaut and since she had to operate the Canadarm, she had to be among the top 1 percentile in patience. Some equipment like a good torque wrench or a nice woodworker's plane are pleasures to operate. I have used the simulator for the shuttle arm and it was the most miserable piece of equipment imaginable. Every move has to be slow because the arm is too fragile to move anything fast and you have to use thrusters to counter the back force on the shuttle.
She would be a perfect actress to play Marcie Ross because she was pretty much the invisible woman - I wouldn't have recognized but she was in the cafeteria lineup right behind me in her spacesuit because it was too much of a bother to take it off for lunch and put it back on again. I thought she was invisible but a colleague I was working with at the time thought she was hot because fitness was his prime criterion for beauty.
I sometimes think of her as Willow - she was married for a time but then came out and lived with her partner until her death at age 61. She and her partner were nationally ranked in tennis.
gwenogjones
Scooby
Horrible Histories is celebrating. Some of these women are inspirational ... some less so, but they were all fighting to survive in a time when it was not much fun to be a woman.
It's a shame they didn't include the Lily Parr sketch, or the woman walking a hundred miles in a hundred hours who had to pull a gun on the watching men who were trying to stop her from finishing - but then they didn't include the Cleopatra song either, I guess they need to save something for next year.
It's a shame they didn't include the Lily Parr sketch, or the woman walking a hundred miles in a hundred hours who had to pull a gun on the watching men who were trying to stop her from finishing - but then they didn't include the Cleopatra song either, I guess they need to save something for next year.
thrasherpix
Scooby
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2016
- Messages
- 5,314
- Age
- 43
I like women (and men) who break through the social barriers set for them, especially if they accomplish great things (though not necessarily, I'm not "forgetting Ayn Rand" here, or even Joan of Arc). This isn't always historical. Rather than give an essay on how my own grandmother inspires me even in her grave (despite some notable differences in belief), I'll stick to historically noteworthy ones (even if some tend to get swept under the carpet, be they historical or contemporary), and I'm also going to skip authors and their tales (I could actually do an essay on how Pippi Longstocking set many seeds in me from a very young age). This includes watching Buffy at just the right time I needed to (without even realizing it until later).
So I'll go with Amelia Earheart, Tiera Guin (with this saying summing up why: "You have to look forward to your dream and you can’t let anybody get in the way of it...No matter how tough it may be, no matter how many tears you might cry, you have to keep pushing. And you have to understand that nothing comes easy. Keeping your eyes on the prize, you can succeed."), Grace Hopper (bonus points on defying age limitations as well as gender to become a Rear Admiral as well as creating one of the earliest computers and programming languages that would be recognized as such today), Kathryn Bolkovac, and Grace Llewellyn. That's an eclectic mix to start with, but they all share the traits of overcoming the odds to do something incredible when the world would've scoffed at them before they did it (and are still trying to bury Kathryn Bolkovac for the most part).
Many know of Greta Thurnberg, but I was much more admiring of Severn Cullis-Suzuki, who gained her passion not on hearing of it, but in being with her family in the endangered Amazon forest and having witnessed too much, and talked to those suffering from deforestation. She supports Greta Thurnberg, but I find it a bit sad that almost nobody remembers her, who did it first, and was involved herself before demanding others get involved.
I just have to include this woman, not just for blowing the whistle as this focuses on, but her ethics that she stood by even when she suffered for them, and what she overcame to be a doctor when women were discouraged from that, Dr. Kim Ervin:
You know, as much as I admire Leo Tolstoy (he may have been a pacifist, but he was not passive!), there are times it's just time to raise the black flag and start slitting throats. I do hold this teen girl as an inspiration (though I don't Joan of Arc): Blenda (I gave a link here because that summary made me laugh).
Bonus to Emma Goldman. I disagree with her on a lot, but even then I'm glad she threw such heresy out there regardless, and gotta admire her spark. That is one of the most courageous women who ever lived. Not just the things she said--and who she said it to--but even going to join the Spanish Civil War over it though she was an outsider. And I do love the saying attributed to her, "If I can't dance, then I don't want to be in your revolution."
I even have to include, grudgingly, a villain. This is not someone I'd want to mix with, and had she been hung until dead then I'd say justice was done (though the ones doing the hanging did worse than she did). There was a recent villain bawling out another villain in another show I love that goes like this: "You think you're entitled to everything just because you've suffered, but suffering isn't enough. You can't just be strong, you have to be smart. You can't just be deserving, you have to be worthy!" And the pirate queen Ching Shih was strong, smart, deserving, and worthy...and proves that sometimes crime not only paid well but comes with an attractive retirement package (assuming she didn't miss the sea too much). Multiple governments handed her riches (and even allowed her to break the law some more) just to retire once they gave up in trying to bring her to justice. And though she's a villain, I just admire that kind of grit and brilliance (though admittedly she just got plain lucky during one attempt to capture her that would've likely succeeded) that enabled her to do something that should've been impossible, something that most of her male kin, including her former husband, never could've hoped to achieve.
Heh, though nothing is known for certain, I do like the version (and find it believable, perhaps seeing similar if less extreme dynamics in my own life as I was growing up) that General Custer was killed by women, relatives of the Cheyenne woman he sired children with, and they not only killed him, but mutilated his ears so he could hear better in the afterlife so that he could hear his own promises to never wage war on the natives again (IIRC, I'm too lazy to look up the actual details, especially when much of it is hearsay with conflicting accounts).
Hmm, wonder if I should include Artemisia I of Caria...or even Boudica who I did a high school "fan fic" about as part of a class assignment that got me into so much trouble (especially, oversimplifying here, as Boudica declared my school principal to be a mortal enemy that she forced to flee, and I read this in front of the class 😀 ).
That's enough on that, especially as many more names, some who would be even more controversial than those above, are coming to mind.
The primary component that they all shared is that they beat the odds and did things no one thought they could (typically because they were female), and sometimes did so where men failed. Given all the messages of my own inherent weaknesses and victim status (by both the malicious and the well meaning) I find them refreshing, and helping me to stay strong despite a world telling me I am weak.
Though as one more shout out...I just admire the organization Doctors Without Borders so much, and much give the men and women who work with and even volunteer there as much praise as I can, even those who are not doctors that are in the field doing their work. There are days I think our species should go extinct, but the men and women of that organization are among those that makes me think we're capable of being better than most of us are.
So I'll go with Amelia Earheart, Tiera Guin (with this saying summing up why: "You have to look forward to your dream and you can’t let anybody get in the way of it...No matter how tough it may be, no matter how many tears you might cry, you have to keep pushing. And you have to understand that nothing comes easy. Keeping your eyes on the prize, you can succeed."), Grace Hopper (bonus points on defying age limitations as well as gender to become a Rear Admiral as well as creating one of the earliest computers and programming languages that would be recognized as such today), Kathryn Bolkovac, and Grace Llewellyn. That's an eclectic mix to start with, but they all share the traits of overcoming the odds to do something incredible when the world would've scoffed at them before they did it (and are still trying to bury Kathryn Bolkovac for the most part).
Many know of Greta Thurnberg, but I was much more admiring of Severn Cullis-Suzuki, who gained her passion not on hearing of it, but in being with her family in the endangered Amazon forest and having witnessed too much, and talked to those suffering from deforestation. She supports Greta Thurnberg, but I find it a bit sad that almost nobody remembers her, who did it first, and was involved herself before demanding others get involved.
I just have to include this woman, not just for blowing the whistle as this focuses on, but her ethics that she stood by even when she suffered for them, and what she overcame to be a doctor when women were discouraged from that, Dr. Kim Ervin:
You know, as much as I admire Leo Tolstoy (he may have been a pacifist, but he was not passive!), there are times it's just time to raise the black flag and start slitting throats. I do hold this teen girl as an inspiration (though I don't Joan of Arc): Blenda (I gave a link here because that summary made me laugh).
Bonus to Emma Goldman. I disagree with her on a lot, but even then I'm glad she threw such heresy out there regardless, and gotta admire her spark. That is one of the most courageous women who ever lived. Not just the things she said--and who she said it to--but even going to join the Spanish Civil War over it though she was an outsider. And I do love the saying attributed to her, "If I can't dance, then I don't want to be in your revolution."
I even have to include, grudgingly, a villain. This is not someone I'd want to mix with, and had she been hung until dead then I'd say justice was done (though the ones doing the hanging did worse than she did). There was a recent villain bawling out another villain in another show I love that goes like this: "You think you're entitled to everything just because you've suffered, but suffering isn't enough. You can't just be strong, you have to be smart. You can't just be deserving, you have to be worthy!" And the pirate queen Ching Shih was strong, smart, deserving, and worthy...and proves that sometimes crime not only paid well but comes with an attractive retirement package (assuming she didn't miss the sea too much). Multiple governments handed her riches (and even allowed her to break the law some more) just to retire once they gave up in trying to bring her to justice. And though she's a villain, I just admire that kind of grit and brilliance (though admittedly she just got plain lucky during one attempt to capture her that would've likely succeeded) that enabled her to do something that should've been impossible, something that most of her male kin, including her former husband, never could've hoped to achieve.
Heh, though nothing is known for certain, I do like the version (and find it believable, perhaps seeing similar if less extreme dynamics in my own life as I was growing up) that General Custer was killed by women, relatives of the Cheyenne woman he sired children with, and they not only killed him, but mutilated his ears so he could hear better in the afterlife so that he could hear his own promises to never wage war on the natives again (IIRC, I'm too lazy to look up the actual details, especially when much of it is hearsay with conflicting accounts).
Hmm, wonder if I should include Artemisia I of Caria...or even Boudica who I did a high school "fan fic" about as part of a class assignment that got me into so much trouble (especially, oversimplifying here, as Boudica declared my school principal to be a mortal enemy that she forced to flee, and I read this in front of the class 😀 ).
That's enough on that, especially as many more names, some who would be even more controversial than those above, are coming to mind.
The primary component that they all shared is that they beat the odds and did things no one thought they could (typically because they were female), and sometimes did so where men failed. Given all the messages of my own inherent weaknesses and victim status (by both the malicious and the well meaning) I find them refreshing, and helping me to stay strong despite a world telling me I am weak.
Though as one more shout out...I just admire the organization Doctors Without Borders so much, and much give the men and women who work with and even volunteer there as much praise as I can, even those who are not doctors that are in the field doing their work. There are days I think our species should go extinct, but the men and women of that organization are among those that makes me think we're capable of being better than most of us are.
M
Moggin
I love this post, and could add no more.