Which woman from history do you admire the most and why?
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Ann Bolyn (I know that’s not how you spell it). I don’t know why though
Joan of Arc, she was french, and I heard she was good looking, she also was a leader, and strategist.
”…and I heard she was good looking…”
::facepalm::
I will answer my own question- Elizabeth I of England- daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. She took England from the brink of bankruptcy, torn apart by religious division and just a mess to its Golden Age. She played the marriage game to her greatest political advantage and defeated the Spanish Armada. Fostered learning and the arts. She truly loved her country and her people. A fascinating person born of a fascinating relationship.
Oh yeah. definitly the Queen Elizabeths
Susan B. Anthony. She helped get American women the vote and was an active abolitionist and human rights advocate.
Mary Leakey
I would like to kick her professional ass. Kind of obscure for most people but I wanna do what she did, a thousand times better.
I know who Mary Leakey is
Esther. With the power of God she saved an entire race of people (the Jews) from King Nebuchadnezzar’s right hand man Haman by putting her life on the line and defying the law already sealed by the king’s signet ring.
Mary. She was seen in God’s sight as holy enough to be the mother of the King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus Christ.
@KAT: DUDE, You’re awesome. We’re awesome. Based on all our Q&A’s. I think we’d get along. :)
Margaret Thatcher. I know many people don;t like her but she did a fair amount of good in England. She turned the country around from economic decline. She was the only Female Prime minister ever in England. She survived through the Falklands and the Cold War. She survived an attempt on her life and pressure from the Irish government and IRA.
I think that Mother Theresa was a very profound and wonderful person for all the accomplshments she made in her life and all the charitable things she did for so many people.
Queen Elizabeth I or Virginia Woolf.
I’m going to second Mother Theresa.
Valentina Tereshkova for being the first woman in space.
I admire many women for different things, but I don’t really have them in a contest against each other for most admired.
Boudicca, Jean D’Arc, Madame Curie, Mother Theresa, Jane Austen, Catherine the Great, Victoria, Elizabeth I… I just think of women I admire, and it seems meaningless to pit them against each other.
I agree with Sloan2024. Esther: She saved the nation of israel from destruction. She made mention as one of the 4 women listed in the geneology of Jesus. She risked her life multiple times to be assertive and stand for her people.
The time period significantly increased her risk. Women were considered property, a decoration of their husband, or in this case the King. A woman could be killed if she displeased her husband even a queen (as in the case of Esther’s predecesor).
Her incredible beauty was something that God used to bring her into the King’s favor and into the influential position as his wife.
I vote for Ann Bolyn, too, because she’s my cousin! My 14-g-grandfather was brother to Ann Bolyn’s mother and to Catherine Howard’s father. I vote for her because she was able to bring Henry VIII to his knees. He was so in love with her. I have read his letters to her, and he really had it bad. When she wouldn’t sleep with him, it drove him crazy! He even broke away from the Catholic Church and started his own church just to marry her.
Thank you, noraasnave. Lurve for you. ;)
Hypathia, Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin, and a lot of unsung or little-sung women in the arts and sciences. I couldn’t really pick just one, either.
@knotmyday: I’m curious about your choice of Lucrezia Borgia, can you tell me why you chose her? She seems to me to be a victim of those around her.
Lucrezia was given a horrible reputation by enemies of her family- to include paternal and fraternal incest, murder, &cet.
In truth, she was probably the nicest, most honorable Borgia the family ever spawned. She survived arranged marriages, the murder (by her family) of the one husband she truly loved, and bore nine children.
She was intelligent, educated, and erudite- a genuine person.
I included her as a symbol of strength and survival to all women who have been wronged.
Ah, thanks for the input. I thought that might have been what you were getting at. Apparently, I’m related to her. I got curious. :)
You and Brooke Shields, apparently. :^)
Serious? Huh. You learn something every day.
So many good choices! I’ve always been a fan of Jeanne d’Arc, for a variety of reasons; many other medieval women would be pretty high on the list, too. But I do have to say I at least have a soft spot for Mary Tudor (note—not Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots), though I know this may provoke some disagreement. She went through a really rough time for most of her life, and yet was able to remain true to those things she found important—I’m not saying I support burning people, but for the time she wasn’t terribly atypical, and she has been unfairly treated by many writers after her death. also I portrayed her for an evening at a school event And, despite all the harshness of her life, by all accounts she was personally a very sweet, talented, and intelligent individual. So… I do respect her quite a bit, though I can’t say that I necessarily have an absolute favorite.
Mary Tudor may have had some good personality traits but by today’s standards she would be classified as a religious fanatic. everything but the catholic faith was wrong to her. this in a country that saw henry III break with rome and start to become anglican, then his son edward who was a fanatical protestant and then mary comes along as a devout catholic. instead of using gentle hands and words to the people she used the stake. she had very religiously confused subjects and didn’t allow for a gradual transformation. the other issue with her is that she lost the english stronghold of calais in france and almost bankrupt england to pay for her husband phillip of spain’s war in the netherlands. i sympathize for the cruel childhood and young adulthood she had to endure but you would think that would make her less likely to persecute people for what they firmly believe.
I don’t like using modern standards to judge history, let alone debates over who is a religious fantatic now or then. The wisdom of her choices was not always the best objectively, but she generally did think she was making the right choices. A complicated figure to be sure, and in many ways a product of her times; I think it is remarkable that she didn’t end up worse than she was.
Lili’uokalani worked as hard as anyone to do right by her people. Boadicea, too. Both faced the most powerful imperial entities of their times, both lost, but both live on as symbols.
I admire Sojourner Truth, who fought to get African-American women at the table of feminism with her great speech Ain’t I A Woman?; Ida B. Wells, a fearless journalist and feminist who exposed the lynchings going on in the country in the late 1800s; Boadicea, sure enough. I don’t know if I’d have it in me to try fighting off the Roman army, but she did, and Cindy Sheehan for getting up in Bush’s grill and demanding accountability for this war.
elizabeth 1. i don’t know why, i just think she’s so awesome. i’m taking a european history class, and when my teacher was lecturing about her i was just like HELL YEAH.
also, natalie portman.
she is historical in that she existed prior to this second, and is just really really awesome. i admire her in so many ways.
and Sacajawea. i wish ben stiller would introduce me to her wax-figure-come-to-life (~watched night at the museum one too many times).
i feel like i’m forgetting someone i really admire, but the name is just NOT coming to me.
@Tiffy – There’s a sequel coming out…
I keep thinking about this, and I find it hard to pick one woman who I admire most. I’m just not edumacated enough on my history.
One living woman who has inspired me is Missy Elliot. Her style is unique, and she stands up there with the big guys of hip hop as most influential. She makes curvy cool, and she experiments with her music. Definitely not a typical choice for a ”#1 Lady”, but I can’t help admiring who I admire.
MY MOM,i can’t think why.
Sister Mary Elephant, she was great with school kids.
There are many great ones. One that I’ve been recently learned about and I think goes unappreciated though is Margaret Sanger. She fought so hard to educate people on birth countrol methods, was even arrested and put in jail for a few years because of it. Most of our family planning clinics in our community can thank her.
Andrea Dworkin, Esther, Khadijah, Michelle Pfeiffer, Betty Friedan, Leah Rabin, Lady Godiva, Cleopatra, Queen Isabella, Elizabeth I, Brody Dalle, Deborah Harry, Siouxsie Sioux
I’m updating my answer. Christine de Pisan is amazing—wonderful thoughts and a way with words, and apparently a very smart and interesting woman. Now, if only I didn’t have to write my paper on her for Intellectual History…
Mother Theresa. Florence Nightingale. Paris Hilton.
My vote would go for someone a little more recent. Like Sally Ride. She is doing an awful lot to try and bring science and engineering as fields of interest to girls through her foundation. I want my daughter playing with rockets as much as my boys.
Patricia Hill Collins, author of Black Feminist Thought and current president of the American Sociological Society. She’s transforming the way sociologists (mostly rich old white men) look at Oppression; and she’s opening up the field for marginalized people and their understanding of society.
Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, author of The Yellow Wallpaper
I would like to change my answer: I choose Madmoms, my soul mate, my wife, my confidant, my child rearing partner, my life partner, my fan, my garden, my love, my heart-holder, and friend for life.
Jael of Heber, housewife. Invite the enemy general in for lunch and a nap, stake him through the temple, then cut off his head with his own sword.
Of course, there are many admirable women in history. The fact that you care is a sign of your own lack of progressiveness.
Marget Sanger but there are many.
Ann Boelyn was an unpaid slut… Not worthy of accomplishing anything except manipulation… Try their daughter however…she rocked!!!
In recent history I admire Rosa Parks. In Bible history I admire Esther. I also admire the Bronte sisters because they were so successful at a time when women stayed home and raised families.
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