March is Women's History Month!!!!

[The_Lady_Snow]

Take advantage of the month of March to investigate strong girls and women in books!

Who are the women you admire??

[The_Lady_Snow]

“Women should be tough, tender, laugh as much as possible and live long lives.”

~ Maya Angelou

[Novelafemme]

Oh this list could get really long:

Anna Nieto Gomez, activist/scholar
Anna Nieto Gomez was one of the most articulate and outspoken Chicana feministas since the early days of the movimiento chicano. Nieto Gomez launched an early and enduring critique of the Chicano movement for ignoring women's issues. She founded an early feminist journal, Encuentro Femenil, in which she and other Chicanas spelled out an inclusive Chicana/o agenda, including issues around childcare, reproductive rights, and the feminization of poverty.

Dr. Nieto Gomez was just here last week lecturing to my MAS365 class. She is incredibly warm and caring and took time to meet with each of us individually. I was on cloud nine the whole time.

Cherrie Moraga, writer/poet/activist/playwright

Cherrie Moraga is a prolific, award-winning Chicana writer/activist/poet/ playwright. Her many published works include Loving in the War Years/Lo Que Nunca Paso Por Los Labios, Cuentos: Stories by Latinas, and The Last Generation. Three of her plays are published in Heroes and Saints and Other Plays by West End Press. She is also co-editor of the pivotal Chicana feminist text, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, both the English and Spanish versions (co-authored separately with Gloria Anzaldua and Ana Castillo). Cherrie has taught drama and writing courses at various universities across the nation, and is currently a faculty member at Stanford University. Her newest play, Watsonville, enjoyed a successful run in San Francisco last year.

Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez, Professor of Chicana/o Studies

Dr. Broyles-Gonzalez was invited to a White House ceremony by President Bill Clinton and the First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on the 35th anniversary of the signing of the Equal Pay Act: June 10, 1998. The White House ceremony highlighted Professor Broyles-Gonzalez' historic 1996 lawsuit which challenged the unequal pay of women professors at the University of California, and was settled in October of 1997. Her victory places UC discriminatory actions within permanent court scrutiny and custody, and is an enduring marker in the struggle for womens rights. Professor Broyles-Gonzlez is a Yaqui-Chicana native of the Arizona-Sonora borderlands with a doctorate in German Studies from Stanford University. In 1985 she became the first woman of color to receive tenure at the University of California in Santa Barbara; she advanced to full Professor in 1991. In 1996 she received the lifetime Distinguished Scholar Award from the National Association for Chicana/o Studies. Her most recent book El Teatro Campesino: Theater in the Chicano Movement has received broad critical acclaim. (submitted by Dr. Antonia Castaneda, St. Mary's University)

This woman has moved me in ways I can't quite articulate because I will start crying. She is by far the most insirational professer I have ever had the pleasure of studying under. Together we are collaborating in bringing Pululaw Khus to the UofA to lecture about maintaining her Chumash indigenous heritage during a time of slavery in California.

Gloria Anzaldua, writer/activist/scholar (d. 2004)

Gloria Anzaldua was a Chicana tejana lesbian-feminist poet, writer, and scholar who played a fundamental role in the development of Chicana feminist theory in the 1970s and beyond. She was co-editor of three of the most influential publications in the emergence of Chicana feminisms: This Bridge Called My Back:Writings by Radical Women of Color, Haciendo Caras/Making Face, Making Soul: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color, and Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Gloria's work theorized a "borderlands" that was historically and geographically situated in the U.S. Southwest, as well as a metaphorical borderlands that encompassed the lives and desires of those marginalized by the power structures of U.S. society.

[Novelafemme]

Professor Sandra Soto

Sandra K. Soto is Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson. She holds a PhD in English, with a focus in Ethnic and Third World Literature, from the University of Texas at Austin. Her book Reading Chican@ Like a Queer: The De-Mastery of Desire (2010), replaces the race-based oppositional paradigm of Chicano literary studies with a less didactic, more flexible, framework geared for a queer analysis of the discursive relationship between racialization and sexuality. Her interdisciplinary research and teaching interests are in Chicana/o and Latina/o literary and cultural studies, feminist theory, gender studies, and queer theory. She is currently working on a book tentatively titled Feeling Greater Mexico, which mobilizes queer theories of affect to pursue unlikely connections between critical transnational studies and U.S. ethnic studies. In 2010 she and Miranda Joseph received the National Education Association Excellence in the Academy Award in Democracy in Higher Education for their essay “Neoliberalism and the Battle over Ethnic Studies in Arizona.” At the University of Arizona, she is an Executive Committee Member of the Institute of LGBT Studies and an affiliate of English, the Center for Latin American Studies, and the Mexican American Studies and Research Center.

Sandy is my inspiration and th reason I am pursing a daul graduate degree in Mexican American Studies. She is incredible!

[Glenn]

I would like to pay deep respect and homage in his thread to Native American women. Without them I would never have learned about the powerful female force in all of creation that has been lost and neglected for thousands and thousands of years. Also, without them as guides, interpreters scouts and negotiators for peace and unity, I sincerely believe this country would have never been settled.

[genghisfawn]

I remember the brunches and beer nights we'd throw when I was co-leading the Women's and Gender Studies students union at my university. Some of the guests we attracted at the local level were astounding - you don't have to look further than your own city, sometimes, to find women who ought to make history!

Happy Women's History Month! Enjoy it. Be proud.

[Rook]

Off the top of my head...

My Mother, My grandmother, Tia Damaris...
I'll have to think on the Notable Women besides them...

[Melissa]

Susan B Anthony
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Sojourner Truth
Virginia Woolf
The Bronte Sisters
Jane Austen
Hillary Clinton
Janet Reno

[The_Lady_Snow]

Alice Paul

[The_Lady_Snow]

[The_Lady_Snow]

The beauty of a woman
Is not in the clothes she wears,
The figure that she carries,
Or the way she combs her hair.

The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes,
Because that is the doorway to her heart,
The place where love resides.
The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole
But true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul.

It is the caring that she lovingly gives,
The passion that she shows,
And the beauty of a woman
With passing years only grows!

[Laidbackgrly]

Amelia Earhart
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Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart, c. 1935
Born July 24, 1897
Atchison, Kansas, U.S.
Disappeared July 2, 1937 (aged 39)
Pacific Ocean, en route to Howland Island
Status Declared dead in absentia
January 5, 1939 (aged 41)
Nationality American
Known for First woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean and setting many aviation records.
Spouse(s) George P. Putnam
Signature

Amelia Mary Earhart (/ˈɛərhɑrt/ AIR-hart; July 24, 1897 – disappeared July 2, 1937) was an American aviation pioneer and author.[1][N 1] Earhart was the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.[3][N 2] She received the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross for this record.[5] She set many other records,[2] wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.[6] Earhart joined the faculty of the Purdue University aviation department in 1935 as a visiting faculty member to counsel women on careers and help inspire others with her love for aviation.""" She was also a member of the National Woman's Party, and an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment.[7][8]"""

During an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight of the globe in 1937 in a Purdue-funded Lockheed Model 10 Electra, Earhart disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island. Fascination with her life, career and disappearance continues to this day.[N 3]
Contents

1 Early life
2 Aviation career and marriage
3 1932 transatlantic solo flight
4 Move to California
5 1937 world flight
6 Theories on Earhart's disappearance
7 Legacy
8 Popular culture
9 Records and achievements
10 Books by Earhart
11 See also
12 References
13 External links

Early life
Childhood
Amelia Earhart as a child

Amelia Mary Earhart, daughter of German American Samuel "Edwin" Stanton Earhart (born March 28, 1867) and Amelia "Amy" Otis Earhart (1869–1962),[10] was born in Atchison, Kansas, in the home of her maternal grandfather, Alfred Gideon Otis (1827–1912), a former federal judge, president of the Atchison Savings Bank and a leading citizen in the town. Amelia was the second child of the marriage, after an infant stillborn in August 1896.[11] Alfred Otis had not initially favored the marriage and was not satisfied with Edwin's progress as a lawyer.[12]

Earhart was named, according to family custom, after her two grandmothers (Amelia Josephine Harres and Mary Wells Patton).[11] From an early age Earhart, nicknamed "Meeley" (sometimes "Millie") was the ringleader while younger sister (two years her junior), Grace Muriel Earhart (1899–1998), nicknamed "Pidge," acted the dutiful follower.[13] Both girls continued to answer to their childhood nicknames well into adulthood.[11] Their upbringing was unconventional since Amy Earhart did not believe in molding her children into "nice little girls."[14] Meanwhile their maternal grandmother disapproved of the "bloomers" worn by Amy's children and although Earhart liked the freedom they provided, she was aware other girls in the neighborhood did not wear them.
Early influence

A spirit of adventure seemed to abide in the Earhart children with the pair setting off daily to explore their neighborhood.[N 4] As a child, Earhart spent long hours playing with Pidge, climbing trees, hunting rats with a rifle and "belly-slamming" her sled downhill. Although this love of the outdoors and "rough-and-tumble" play was common to many youngsters, some biographers have characterized the young Earhart as a tomboy.[16] The girls kept "worms, moths, katydids and a tree toad"[17] in a growing collection gathered in their outings. In 1904, with the help of her uncle, she cobbled together a home-made ramp fashioned after a roller coaster she had seen on a trip to St. Louis and secured the ramp to the roof of the family toolshed. Earhart's well-documented first flight ended dramatically. She emerged from the broken wooden box that had served as a sled with a bruised lip, torn dress and a "sensation of exhilaration." She exclaimed, "Oh, Pidge, it's just like flying!"[12]

Although there had been some missteps in his career up to that point, in 1907 Edwin Earhart's job as a claims officer for the Rock Island Railroad led to a transfer to Des Moines, Iowa. The next year, at the age of 10,[18] Earhart saw her first aircraft at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.[19][20] Her father tried to interest her and her sister in taking a flight. One look at the rickety old "flivver" was enough for Earhart, who promptly asked if they could go back to the merry-go-round.[21] She later described the biplane as "a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting."[22]
Education

The two sisters, Amelia and Muriel (she went by her middle name from her teens on), remained with their grandparents in Atchison, while their parents moved into new, smaller quarters in Des Moines. During this period, Earhart received a form of home-schooling together with her sister, from her mother and a governess. She later recounted that she was "exceedingly fond of reading"[23] and spent countless hours in the large family library. In 1909, when the family was finally reunited in Des Moines, the Earhart children were enrolled in public school for the first time with Amelia Earhart entering the seventh grade at the age of 12 years.
Family fortunes

While the family's finances seemingly improved with the acquisition of a new house and even the hiring of two servants, it soon became apparent Edwin was an alcoholic. Five years later (in 1914), he was forced to retire and although he attempted to rehabilitate himself through treatment, he was never reinstated at the Rock Island Railroad. At about this time, Earhart's grandmother Amelia Otis died suddenly, leaving a substantial estate that placed her daughter's share in trust, fearing that Edwin's drinking would drain the funds. The Otis house, and all of its contents, was auctioned; Earhart was heartbroken and later described it as the end of her childhood.[24]

In 1915, after a long search, Earhart's father found work as a clerk at the Great Northern Railway in St. Paul, Minnesota, where Earhart entered Central High School as a junior. Edwin applied for a transfer to Springfield, Missouri, in 1915 but the current claims officer reconsidered his retirement and demanded his job back, leaving the elder Earhart with nowhere to go. Facing another calamitous move, Amy Earhart took her children to Chicago where they lived with friends. Earhart made an unusual condition in the choice of her next schooling; she canvassed nearby high schools in Chicago to find the best science program. She rejected the high school nearest her home when she complained that the chemistry lab was "just like a kitchen sink."[25] She eventually was enrolled in Hyde Park High School but spent a miserable semester where a yearbook caption captured the essence of her unhappiness, "A.E. – the girl in brown who walks alone."[26]

Earhart graduated from Hyde Park High School in 1916.[27] Throughout her troubled childhood, she had continued to aspire to a future career; she kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about successful women in predominantly male-oriented fields, including film direction and production, law, advertising, management and mechanical engineering.[18] She began junior college at Ogontz School in Rydal, Pennsylvania but did not complete her program.[28][N 5]

During Christmas vacation in 1917, Earhart visited her sister in Toronto. World War I had been raging and Earhart saw the returning wounded soldiers. After receiving training as a nurse's aide from the Red Cross, she began work with the Volunteer Aid Detachment at Spadina Military Hospital. Her duties included preparing food in the kitchen for patients with special diets and handing out prescribed medication in the hospital's dispensary.[29]
1918 Spanish flu pandemic

When the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic reached Toronto, Earhart was engaged in arduous nursing duties including night shifts at the Spadina Military Hospital.[30][31] She became a patient herself, suffering from pneumonia and maxillary sinusitis.[30] She was hospitalized in early November 1918 owing to pneumonia and discharged in December 1918, about two months after the illness had started.[30] Her sinus-related symptoms were pain and pressure around one eye and copious mucus drainage via the nostrils and throat.[32] In the hospital, in the pre-antibiotic era, she had painful minor operations to wash out the affected maxillary sinus,[30][31][32] but these procedures were not successful and Earhart subsequently suffered from worsening headache attacks. Her convalescence lasted nearly a year, which she spent at her sister's home in Northampton, Massachusetts.[31] She passed the time by reading poetry, learning to play the banjo and studying mechanics.[30] Chronic sinusitis was to significantly affect Earhart's flying and activities in later life,[32] and sometimes even on the airfield she was forced to wear a bandage on her cheek to cover a small drainage tube.[33]
Early flying experiences

At about that time, with a young woman friend, Earhart visited an air fair held in conjunction with the Canadian National Exposition in Toronto. One of the highlights of the day was a flying exhibition put on by a World War I "ace."[34] The pilot overhead spotted Earhart and her friend, who were watching from an isolated clearing and dived at them. "I am sure he said to himself, 'Watch me make them scamper,'" she said. Earhart stood her ground as the aircraft came close. "I did not understand it at the time," she said, "but I believe that little red airplane said something to me as it swished by."[35]

By 1919 Earhart prepared to enter Smith College but changed her mind and enrolled at Columbia University signing up for a course in medical studies among other programs.[36] She quit a year later to be with her parents who had reunited in California.
L–R: Neta Snook and Amelia Earhart in front of Earhart's Kinner Airster, c. 1921

In Long Beach, on December 28, 1920, Earhart and her father visited an airfield where Frank Hawks (who later gained fame as an air racer) gave her a ride that would forever change Earhart's life. "By the time I had got two or three hundred feet off the ground," she said, "I knew I had to fly."[37] After that 10-minute flight (that cost her father $10), she immediately became determined to learn to fly. Working at a variety of jobs, including photographer, truck driver, and stenographer at the local telephone company, she managed to save $1,000 for flying lessons. Earhart had her first lessons, beginning on January 3, 1921, at Kinner Field near Long Beach, but to reach the airfield Earhart took a bus to the end of the line, then walked four miles (6 km). Earhart's mother also provided part of the $1,000 "stake" against her "better judgement."[38] Her teacher was Anita "Neta" Snook, a pioneer female aviator who used a surplus Curtiss JN-4 "Canuck" for training. Earhart arrived with her father and a singular request, "I want to fly. Will you teach me?"[39]

Earhart's commitment to flying required her to accept the frequently hard work and rudimentary conditions that accompanied early aviation training. She chose a leather jacket, but aware that other aviators would be judging her, she slept in it for three nights to give the jacket a "worn" look. To complete her image transformation, she also cropped her hair short in the style of other female flyers.[40] Six months later, Earhart purchased a secondhand bright yellow Kinner Airster biplane which she nicknamed "The Canary." On October 22, 1922, Earhart flew the Airster to an altitude of 14,000 feet (4,300 m), setting a world record for female pilots. On May 15, 1923, Earhart became the 16th woman to be issued a pilot's license (#6017)[41] by t