LEHIGH VALLEY VOICE - June 05, 2023
Women Making Their Mark Throughout History
By Deb Lehman
How you handle a crisis is a test of your character. These pioneers for women’s suffrage and racial equality overcame adversity, broke rules, and expressed their voices, showing their male peers what it meant to be a role model. Whether inventors, scientists, leaders, politicians, or Queens, each of these extraordinary females left their mark on history.
1. Jane Austen (1775 – 1817)
“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
One of the brightest lights of the Regency period, Jane Austen authored six full-length novels. Her use of biting irony, social commentary, and realism have earned Austen acclaim among critics, scholars, and lovers of literature. Born into a family of eight children in England, Austen started writing Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility in her teens. Austen’s novels questioned women’s roles in society. Austen never married and published under a pseudonym because women were not supposed to write (or read) novels. It wasn’t until her death that her brother, Henry, revealed her identity. Austen’s novels have become classics for their timeless themes and lessons.
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
Annelies Marie Frank was a German-born Jewish girl who kept a diary in which she documented life in hiding under Nazi persecution. She described everyday life from her family hiding place in an Amsterdam attic with honesty, passion, compassion, insight, and courage. Tragically, the Franks were betrayed and sent to concentration camps in 1944. Otto Frank was the only survivor and had Anne’s diary published in 1947. The Diary of Anne Frank, translated into almost 70 languages, remains a personal testament to Anne’s indomitable will and idealism beautifully expressed here (BrainyQuote): “Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.”
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Legendary author and poet and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou’s award-winning memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, made literary history as the first nonfiction best-seller by an African-American woman. Maya experienced racial discrimination in Arkansas while living with her grandmother and later was assaulted by her mother’s boyfriend who was killed by her uncles in revenge. The incident so traumatized Maya that she became a mute for many years, but she overcame her fears through reading and writing. In more than 30 bestselling books, Angelou explores subjects such as identity, rape, racism, and literacy, and illustrates how strength of character and a love of literature can help overcome racism and trauma.
“Though the sex to which I belong is considered weak you will nevertheless find me a rock that bends to no wind.”
The last monarch of the House of Tudor and sometimes called “The Virgin Queen,” she chose to marry her country instead of a man and reigned for 45 years. Queen Elizabeth I is one of the most successful royals in British history and thanks to her cunning, intelligence, and faith, England became a major European power in politics, commerce, and the arts. Elizabeth was not the first in line to the throne, both because she was a woman and because her mother was Anne Boleyn, the hated second wife of Henry VIII. In a rare show of sympathy, Queen Mary (a/k/a Bloody Mary) decided to banish Elizabeth instead of kill her. The rest is history.
“Power without a nation's confidence is nothing.”
Tempestuous and fascinating, the Prussian-born Queen embraced Enlightenment ideals and earned the reputation for being a ruthless leader. Stuck in an unhappy marriage to the King of Russia, Catherine orchestrated a coup to overthrow her unpopular husband Peter III, and then named herself Empress of the Russian Empire in 1762. The empress—born a penniless Prussian princess—wielded power for three decades despite the fact that she had no claim to the crown. Catherine is credited for modernizing Russia and established the first state-funded school for girls, reeled back the power of the church within the state, and encouraged the development of the economy, trade and the arts.
