March is Women’s History Month. A month that celebrates the important role of women in history. Today is International Women’s Day.
There are several women who inspire me, but I want to discuss some of the famous women in this blog. One thing that is common among all these women is perseverance. It means the ability to work continuously for something you believe in without giving up. Reading their life stories has encouraged me to work hard and has taught me to never give up. My list of inspirational women will be incomplete without the famous authors who have inspired me through their books and have changed my perspective about life. There are several other women who are not famous but have influenced me in some way or the other. They include my teachers, family, friends, and mentors/coaches, especially Mrs. Jeneeya Suwal from Our Sunday Project. On the occasion of International Women’s Day, I want to honor all the women who inspire me to become a better version of myself.
The list of inspiring famous women is very long but I want to share the life stories of a few that have influenced me the most.
Malala Yousafzai– Malala is a Pakistani girl who is an activist for girls’ education and is the youngest person to get the Nobel Peace Prize. She fought against the Taliban for girls’ education and was shot in the head by the Taliban. She survived that attack and now lives in England. She is famous for her books, movies, and blog. She started writing blogs when she was in Pakistan but with a different name. So nobody knew it was her. Malala has inspired me since I was six years old. I have read books about her life and watched documentaries many times. She continues to fight for girls’ education in many countries. I salute her courage and perseverance for a great purpose.
Note: When I was 7, I was so impressed by Malala’s work that I wrote ten pages about her in creative writing class during Summer school. I was so fascinated by her life that I read her book ‘I am Malala’ many times.
Greta Thunberg – Greta Thunberg is a Swedish teenage girl (born on January 3, 2003) who is also an environmental activist. She has some mental health challenges because of Asperger syndrome, but this doesn’t stop her from achieving her passion. Greta is trying to make the earth a better place for future generations. She has earned the Right Livelihood Award and has written many books. Thunberg is one of the famous people I want to meet. She has inspired many people and even challenged world leaders, including President Donald Trump, with her words. Her ‘How dare you?’ speech has gone viral and is motivating many kids to fight against climate change and global warming.
Aisha Chaudary- If you have watched the Bollywood movie “The Sky is Pink,” you probably know Aisha Chaudhary. It is a movie about a Indian girl who has combined immunodeficiency just like her sister who died very young. She had to undergo a bone marrow transplant when she was a baby. Many years later, she has pulmonary fibrosis as a complication and dies young. She was on a TED talk in 2014. She died in 2015, the day after her book was published. Fun facts are that her father is the CEO of Panera (Niren Chaudary) and that she has written a book called “My Little Epiphanies” (but I have not read the book). Another interesting fact is that her brother Ishaan made a song called ‘For Aisha’ sung in memory for her by EVAN GIIA and MEMBA. She is one of the young girls to fight against serious illness with a smile and giving the lesson to be positive in life. She has given me a passion for art and creativity. Her ted talk on youtube is inspirational and is the best one I have watched! She talks about life, death, and true happiness.
Note: You can watch the movie on Netflix. It is called “The Sky is Pink”.
Michelle Obama- Michelle Obama was the First Lady of the USA when Barack Obama was the president. She is very inspiring. I admired her work more after I watched the documentary “Becoming” on Netflix. Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama is a lawyer and author who was the first lady between 2008 to 2017. She has two daughters Malia and Sasha. Michelle went to popular schools like Harvard and Princeton. When she was in high school, her guidance counselor thought she was good for nothing, and she would never make it to a good school. But that never stopped her. She made her way to amazing schools in the United States and achieved everything she aimed. She has taught me to believe in myself. She is intelligent, confident, and compassionate.
Note: You can watch ‘Becoming’ on Netflix.
Amelia Earhart – Amelia Mary Earhart was an American aviation pioneer and the first girl aviator to fly an airplane. She has earned many awards, set many records, and has written best-selling books. Amelia was married but had no children. She always said that she wanted to fly for as long as she could. Amelia went to Columbia University, and her teachers described her as a “bright and ambitious student”. I can tell she was ambitious because she was the first female to fly an airplane. She has inspired many girls to pursue this career. Here is my favorite quote from her:
“Adventure is worthwhile in itself”
- Amelia EarhartI am impressed by Miss Earhart’s courage and ability to realize her dreams. She had a dream to fly, and she realized her dream of flying. Unfortunately, Earhart disappeared on July 2nd, 1937 due to a plane crash. She was found and declared dead on Howland Island in 1939. She has inspired many people to believe in themselves. I was always fascinated by Earhart’s achievements and accomplishments.
Helen Keller- Helen Adams Keller was an American author diagnosed with both blindness and deafness only at the age of two. She was born on June 27, 1880. She was the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor’s arts degree. She is also known for her inspiring books and novels like “The Story of My Life” which was published in 1903. Helen Keller’s achievements are important because she showed that deaf and blind people deserve respect and equal opportunity. She inspired many kids with disabilities. She taught them to be strong and to have self-esteem. Helen was supported by Anne Sullivan. Anne Sullivan was an American teacher who taught Helen Keller from her childhood to her adulthood. Anne Sullivan helped Keller be successful. She helped her in writing her books and supported her throughout her life. Anne Sullivan Macy was born on April 14, 1866. At the age of five, she was diagnosed with trachoma (infection of eyes), which made her blind. When Sullivan was young, her mom died of severe lung disease. She faced many trials in her lifetime, going from blind in an orphanage to a successful teacher that helped change the world of teaching for the blind. Born on April 14, 1866, in Feeding Hills, MA, Anne Sullivan was born into a world of poverty. It was only after several operations that Anne regained some of her sight. On October 20, 1936, Anne Sullivan died of coronary thrombosis. Nevertheless, she was an inspiring person and made Helen Keller one of the best deaf/blind people! Anne is an example that a good teacher and mentor has the power to make a big difference. She was the force behind Helen Keller’s success.
JK Rowling– Joanne “JK” Rowling is a British author and is the author of the Harry Potter series, ‘Fantastic Beasts’, ‘The Tales of Beedle the Bard,’ and some other adult books. She has won many awards, and people have even made movies and plays out of her books. Before she started writing, she was a secretary in Amnesty International when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series while on a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990. The seven-year period that followed saw the death of her mother, birth of her first child, divorce from her first husband, and relative poverty. Until the first novel in the series, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” in 1997 was published. There are six sequels, and her last book was “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” in 2007.
J.K Rowling is an inspirational writer because she encourages children, creates a strong role model for women, and shares her imagination and generosity with growing teens, and does charities. JK Rowling’s books have taught me about bravery, friendship, and fantasy. Now because of her books, I love fantasy books and believe in the power of imagination. My favorite quote by JK Rowling is “We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already. We have the power to imagine better.”
Florence Nightingale- Florence Nightingale (12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was an English social reformer, statistician, and founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War, in which she organized to care for wounded soldiers. Florence Nightingale’s life teaches us care, empathy, and compassion.
Mother Teresa: Mother Teresa (Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu) was born in a little town called Skopje, which is modern-day Macedonia. Her father Nikola was a very successful businessman and a missionary, and her mother was Drana, a housewife. As a little girl, Agnes (Soon as Mother Teresa) was a very disciplined, thoughtful little girl, who didn’t seem to mind helping others. One day, her father had returned from Calcutta (Present-day Kolkata in India) when Agnes was 12, she felt the call of God, and God had told her to help others around the world. On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa received permission from the Holy See to start her own order, “The Missionaries of Charity”, whose primary task was to love and care for those persons nobody was prepared to look after. In 1965, the Society became an International Religious Family by a decree of Pope Paul VI. Mother Teresa then went to Calcutta, India, and other parts of India to help poor and sick peoples in the slums. Mother Teresa was first called Sister Teresa, then several people liked her work and called her Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa earned several awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize. At the age of 87, Mother Teresa passed away due to old age and sickness in India.
Madame Curie(1867- 1934)
Marie Curie, a famous scientist, grew up in Warsaw, Poland where she was born on November 7, 1867. Her birth name was Maria Sklodowska, but her family called her Manya. Marie became fascinated by rays that were recently discovered by scientists Wilhelm Roentgen and Henri Becquerel. Marie named one of the elements polonium after her homeland Poland. She named the other radium because it gave off such strong rays. The Curies came up with the term “radioactivity” to describe elements that emitted strong rays.
In 1903, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Marie and Pierre Curie as well as Henri Becquerel for their work in radiation. Marie became the first woman to be awarded the prize.
In 1911, Marie won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering the two elements, polonium, and radium. She was the first person to be awarded two Nobel Prizes. Marie became very famous. Scientists came from around the world to study radioactivity with Marie. Soon doctors found that radiology could help with curing cancer. Marie died on July 4, 1934. She died from overexposure to radiation, both from her experiments and from her work with X-ray machines. Today there are lots of safety measures to keep scientists from getting overexposed to the rays. She dedicated her life to discovering things that are used now every day in the hospitals to save lives. She had to face many challenges in her journey as a woman scientist, but she never gave up.
Rosa Parks (1903-2005) – During this period of protests against racism, I want to remember Rosa Parks. It is a time to share a story about a brave African American woman who refused to give up her seat to a white person during the time of segregation. Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an American activist in the Civil Rights Movement known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I believe that Rosa Parks is one of the bravest women I have ever heard of because she was jailed for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, a violation of the city’s racial segregation laws. Parks was in the first row of the black section when the white driver demanded that she give up her seat to a white man. She fought against segregation.
I like her quote:
“You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right”
Rosa Parks
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020)
Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born on March 15th, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York to Jewish parents Celia and Nathan Bader. Growing up, Ruth was into politics and was a horrible singer. Ruth had a sad childhood, her sister had passed away and her mother was battling cancer and sadly passed away shortly after Ruth graduated. A couple of years passed, when Ruth married Martin Ginsburg and had two children. Ruth was very talented working at court and was recognized by Bill Clinton and became the second female justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Ruth was very inspirational to many people and was mostly known for wearing jewelry whenever she was at work. Ruth had fought for what was right and people used to have a saying called ‘Ruth for Truth’. But something terrible happened when Ruth was diagnosed with cancer. She had three cancers and she bravely fought, until she lost her battle to pancreatic cancer. We still have not forgotten about Ruth’s achievements and she will never be forgotten!
Kamala Harris
Kamala D. Harris was born in Oakland California to an Indian mother and Jamaican father. Her mother Shymala Gopalan was a biologist and her father Donald Harris was a Stanford University professor. Along with her younger sister Maya, Harris lived in Berkeley with a big black population. A neighbor regularly took the Harris girls to an African American church in Oakland where they sang in the children’s choir. Their mother then began to teach them about Hindu Mythology and took them to the local Hindu temple where they sang mantras. At the age of seven, Harris’s parents got divorced in the early 1970s. Shymala took her children to Chennai multiple times to visit the family. Harris was very inspired by her grandfather Mr. Gopalan and acknowledged him during interviews. After high school, she attended Howard University, a historically black university. While at Howard, she led the debate team. In February 1998, San Francisco district attorney Terence Hallinan recruited Harris as an assistant district attorney. And finally in August 2000, Harris took a new job at San Francisco City Hall, working for city attorney Louise Renne. In 2020, Harris decided to contest for president from the Democratic party but later she was chosen as the vice-presidential candidate for the Democratic party. Finally, she is the first woman to be Vice President. For more on Kamala Harris check out my previous post, A History Has Been Created.
Amanda Gorman
Amanda Gorman was born on March 7th, 1998 in California. She is known for her inspiring poems. She was invited to share her poem at the 2021 inauguration ceremony. Amanda Gorman’s story is so inspiring. Amanda had grown up having trouble saying the words starting with’ R’. The fact that inspired me the most, was that she pushed through and worked on her R’s. The poem that she recited on Inauguration Day had the word ‘Rise’ five times and she did a great job. Her poem was extremely powerful and impressive. I really liked how Gorman used lines from Martin Luther King’s, “I Have a Dream’ speech, and quotes by Fredrick Douglass that said, “Being American is more than a pride we inherit, it’s the past we step into and how we repair it. It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”
My favorite line was:
“There is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be.” Another powerful line from the poem was: “We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,” “And the norms and notions of ‘what just is’ isn’t always ‘justice.
Amanda’s poetry has influenced many people all over America and is continuing to write poems and books in the future.
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross) was an American abolitionist and political activist. Born into slavery, it was not fun for Tubman as she worked so hard day and night. Tubman was often beaten by her various masters as a child. Early in life, she suffered a traumatic head wound. The injury caused dizziness, pain, and spells of hypersomnia, which occurred throughout her life. After her injury, Tubman began experiencing strange visions and vivid dreams, which she saw visions of God. Which led her to become religious. In 1849, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia, only to return to Maryland to rescue her family soon after. When the Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. Around 1844, she married a free Black man named John Tubman. Harriet then joined the underground railroad trying to escape slavery. Harriet welcomed several people into her home, even raising money for schools for black children. Harriet died in1913 but we will always remember her courageous journey of the Underground Railroad and her contribution to ending slavery.
Sojourner Truth (1797- 1883)
Sojourner Truth was a slave, born in 1797 and grew up in a dutch territory. When she was 10 she was sold to a white family. She couldn’t speak English as she spoke fluent Dutch. She was shouted at often by her masters and didn’t want to be bossed around and being forced to do things as a slave. Truth was very smart and learned English quickly. Her fourth master Mr. Dunmount was quite nice to Truth. When Truth was older, she wanted to marry another slave in the other field but Dunmount refused. So she married a man named Thomas instead. They had 5 children and one had died. Truth was furious about how women were treated poorly so Truth stood up to end slavery and went to court to stop her children from being slaves and she won. Sojourner began to work with abolitionists to bring slavery to an end throughout the United States. She became an important leader to help end slavery and was the first woman in the National Women’s Hall of Fame. She died on November 26, 1883.
Frida Kahlo:
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter born on July 6th, 1907 to a Mexican-German family. When she was a kid, she got sick due to Polio which changed her ability to walk. She wore long skirts to hide her right leg as it was deformed. When Frida was a teenager, she got into a bad accident and the injuries led her to be bed-bound and not able to have any children. But this did not stop her from anything that she wanted to create. Frida was self0taught and started painting her self-portraits to relieve her from stress. She would make inspirational paintings that showed that she could be the best version of herself. In 1954, Frida Kahlo died of an overdose.
Pocahontas:
Pocahontas is known as a mother to this country and her name has been spoken in this country for 400 years. Pocahontas was the daughter of the chief of Powhatan of the Pamunkey tribe. Pocahontas’s real name was ‘Matoaka’ but was nicknamed Pocahontas which means playful one. Pocahontas lived in Jamestown, Virginia where she met British settlers looking for gold. When Pocahontas was 10, the British had arrived at Jamestown. The settlers had not brought a lot of supplies and they did not have any food when the winter came, so they started stealing from the Powhatan. A guy named John Smith had been fighting with Pocahontas’s father, forcing him to join him and his team. His father refused which sparked a fight. With Pocahontas’s father’s approval, she befriended the English as they had stolen and forced the Pocahontas’s people to go on their side. It was an uneasy peace between the two and lots of violence broke out. Six years later, the British kidnapped her. She was forced to convert to Christianity but refused to convert. One day, during a bible study, Pocahontas met tobacco farmer John Rolfe. John Rolfe confessed his love towards Pocahontas and Pocahontas decided to convert to Christianity under the name of Rebecca. She later married John. Pocahontas then had a son named Thomas Rolfe in 1615. Several years forward, the Powhatan and the Britishers made up and Pocahontas’s name was told all over the world. As her story was inspiring there would be a story written by John Smith on her journey. In March 1617, Pocahontas passed away at a young age of unknown causes. Some say it was pneumonia as there was a bad case of pneumonia back then.
If you want to learn more about these inspiring women, read the book series,’ Who is….?’ or watch the show called “Who was?’’ on Netflix. Or borrow books on them from the local public library.
I hope you liked this blog, and by now you have your own list of women who inspire you.
Happy International Women’s Day!
Credits: Wikipedia, Google, “Who Was?” Series and several websites.