celebratingamazingwomen

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Another young life snuffed away for no reason, another cruel reminder of what women have to face every day of our lives.

RIP Sarah Everard. It will not be all in vain.

I wrote this impulsively, feelings that had accumulated over years pouring out of me all at once. I'm devastated, I'm angry, I'm scared. But we can't let this anger die out. Something must change.

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On International Women's Day, we can celebrate, we can rejoice, we can reach out to the women in our lives and tell them how much they mean to us. We can lift each other up and put our achievements in the spotlight.

But we also need to keep fighting, stay informed, stay angry at a world that is still very much against us, and in some ways going backwards and threatening to undo decades of progress. We can say 'Thank you for the flowers, but what we really want are freedom, justice, and equal rights'.

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Anna Christina Nobre (b. February 22, 1963) is a neuroscientist from Brazil. She is the Head of the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, as well as the director of the Oxford Centre for Human Brain Activity.

She studied in Brazil and the US and obtained her PhD from Yale. Her research focuses on the neural systems that support cognitive functions in the brain, and she was responsible for some of the first brain-imaging studies of such functions.

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Lilian Bader (18 February 1918 – 13 March 2015) was one of the first Black women in the British Armed Forces. She was a trailblazer for women in the military despite the obstacles she encountered on account of her Barbadian heritage.

After being orphaned and living in a convent for most of her youth, she enlisted in the army at the start of World War II, only to be dismissed when it was discovered that her father had not been born in the UK. Two years later, when West Indians were allowed to join, she enlisted in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, eventually becoming a Leading Aircraft Woman and corporal. After the war, she dedicated her life and career to teaching.

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Myra Bradwell (February 12, 1831 – February 14, 1894) made history in 1870, when she attempted to become the first woman in the state of Illinois to practice law. Even though she was denied, her activism paved the way for anti-discrimination laws that allowed countless women to enter the workforce in a variety of fields.

She was motivated to study the profession after she married the lawyer James Bradwell and started working as an apprentice in his office. In 1868 she founded the newspaper Chicago Legal News, which had a column dedicated to women’s issues. Even if her attempts to be admitted to the bar were initially unsuccessful, her efforts directly led to the passing of a law that forbade gender discrimination in all areas except the military. She was eventually awarded her license to practise in 1892.

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Raven Wilkinson (February 2, 1935 – December 17, 2018) was a pioneering ballerina, one of the first African-American dancers to perform with a major classical ballet company. She achieved this in 1955, when she began dancing with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, breaking the color barrier.

She started studying dance when she was five, and was admitted to the ballet company on her third audition, having been rejected previously because of her race. She advanced to the position of soloist during her second season there, and remained with the Ballet Russe for six years. She faced persistent discrimination, especially when performing for segregated audiences in the American South, and eventually moved to the Netherlands to work with the Dutch National Ballet.

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Ruth Asawa (January 24, 1926 – August 5, 2013) was an American sculptor of Japanese ancestry. Her work is displayed in collections of world-renowned museums such as the Guggenheim or the Whitney Museum of American Art.

She is especially known for her intricate wire sculptures, many of which are on permanent display in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. She has also created public fountains for many squares around the city. In addition to her work as a sculptor, Asawa was a dedicated activist for artistic education and contributed to the founding of the San Francisco School of Arts, renamed after her in 2010.

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Zuzana Růžičková (14 January 1927 – 27 September 2017) was a Czech harpsichordist. She was the first to record the complete works of Bach for keyboard, and was known as ‘The First Lady of the Harpsichord’ in her country and internationally.

She was a survivor of several Nazi concentration camps and faced political persecution even after the war, as she refused to become a member of the Communist Party that ruled Czechoslovakia. During her long career of more than 50 years, she performed all around the world and taught numerous acclaimed musicians.

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And we’re back!

Just a quick note to let you all know that I am returning to give you your regular dose of amazing ladies of past and present. After more than four years of daily posting, followed by a long hiatus (due, in part, to ~2020~ and everything it stands for), I’ve decided to continue with weekly instead of daily posts, striking a balance between putting out content and juggling everything else that’s going on.

Thank you for your continued support and understanding <3 Please get in touch with suggestions, comments, or anything else. Love to all, and let’s work together to make this a better year.

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Helen Freedhoff (9 January 1940 – 10 June 2017) was a theoretical physicist from Canada. She is believed to have been the only female professor of theoretical physics in the country at the time of her appointment at York University in Toronto in 1967.

Her research focused on the interaction of light with atoms, and she was only the second woman to receive a PhD in her field in Canada. She collaborated with institutions from around the world and wrote over 40 scientific papers throughout her career.

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Dana Ulery (b. 2 January 1938) is a pioneer of computer science. She became the first female engineer at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1961, working on algorithms for the NASA Deep Space Network.

She studied English Literature and Mathematics, followed by a PhD in Computer Science. Throughout her career she held posts at a number of institutions, such as the United States Army Research Laboratory or the American University in Cairo. She received numerous awards for her ground-breaking work in engineering and computing.

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Hello, all!

Just a quick note to say I’m still alive, and (despite appearances) so is this blog. It’s just been a weird few months, as I am sure you will understand and relate. I am not abandoning CAW, but I currently have too much going on to devote the care and attention it deserves; so, instead of half-assing one thing, I will wait a bit more and return when I can whole-ass it again.

In the meantime, I would like to present my latest project: a collaboration with a wonderful Edinburgh-based LGBTQ+ publication, which will launch its first issue in a matter of days! I had the privilege to interview the amazing Jackie Kay, the Makar of Scotland and an amazing poet. If you are based in the UK, please consider buying and supporting the mag.

Thank you to everyone for your continuous support, even while I stayed radio silent. I appreciate you all, and I wish you the best.

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Sarah Waters (b. 1966) is a Welsh author, known for her Victorian-era novels featuring lesbian characters. Each of her novels has received various literary awards.

Her first novel, Tipping the Velvet, was released in 1998 and was subsequently translated in 24 languages. The 2002 novel Fingersmith was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. She won Author of the Year on several occasions.

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Wendy Freedman (b. 1957) is a Canadian astronomer. She is currently a Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, and is best known for her measurements of the Hubble constant.

After getting her PhD from the University of Toronto, she was one of the leaders of the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project, coordinating a team of 30 international astronomers. She also initiated the Giant Magellan Telescope Project, which will be the world’s largest ground-based telescope when completed.

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Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) was an African-American sociologist, suffragette, and early leader of the civil rights movement. Born a slave in Mississippi, she was freed, along with her family, under the Emancipation Proclamation. After becoming a teacher in a black elementary school, she grew to resent the segregation and the unfairly low salary compared to white teachers, which encouraged her to become an activist.

She investigated the phenomenon of lynching, finding that it was rooted in racial hate and prejudice rather than in black criminal activity, as previously claimed. As a consequence, she started an intense anti-lynching campaign.

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She was awarded the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in 2018, and used all of the £2.3 million to help female, minority and refugee students become physics researchers.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell (b. 1943) is an astrophysicist from Northern Ireland, who was the first to discover radio pulsars. Despite the fact that it was her research that led to the first observation and analysis of the pulsars, it was her supervisor, Antony Hewish, who received the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics for the breakthrough discovery.

Growing up in Northern Ireland, she was only allowed to study science at school after her parents and others protested against the exclusion of female students from such subjects. She obtained her PhD from the University of Cambridge, and went on to become the President of the Royal Astronomical Society and of the Institute of Physics. In 2014 she became President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the first woman to hold the position.

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Angélique Kidjo (b. 1960) is a Beninese artist, named by Time magazine as “Africa’s premier diva”. Her entire discography is inspired by traditional African music, with a modern twist. Her latest album, EVE, released in 2014, is a celebration of African women, their beauty and their resilience.

More than a Grammy-winning singer, she is also a committed activist, and has been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for more than 10 years.