[-empyre-] most influential, most dangerous, most courageous women

[christina]

Ana wrote

> At the Intifada the women had a very crucial role, I met Leila  
> Khaled some years ago in Amman and her tale of her hitchjacking of  
> two planes in the Eighties: is really atonishing.
> And I come myself from a generation of women engaged in gerilla  
> warfare in South America. I spent four years as political prisoner  
> in Uruguay for that.
> I think it's a kind of media issue, we "common women" don't fit in  
> the hero's stereotyps.


Actually I am so glad you (Ana) point out my apparently limited view  
of intifada activity for women as limited to suicide.... My comment  
was deliberately hyperbolic-- incendiary on purpose, in that  
professorial way, as I hoped to wake up the list!!
Let's ask  how there could be some more visibility for the amazing  
women who have struggled to counter the systems of control, here on - 
empyre-.   Specifically about this, not just in the context of other  
media/cultural topics.

To perform this exercise is to make evident exactly why it's important  
to the theme of "How does a field become visible, when?"
We know of some, if some go on to be able to publish their writing and  
other creative work and to enter multiple streams of political  
action-- as you have done.  Then there are so many who are as you call  
them 'common women' -- but not common in their courage.

Here is the beginning of a  list of 'most courageous women' -- however  
you define 'woman' and of any era--.  several of us have been trying  
to create this week, with help from friends.. A few names are 'famous'  
but mostly not......



Hoda Aminan
Eula Gray
Mary Wollstronecraft
Mary Whang Choi
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Sussan Tamassebi
Rosa Luxembourg
Asadah Faramaziha
Parvin Ardalan
Suely Rolnick
Esha Momeimi
Axelline Soloman
Elena Gil
Phyllis Wheatly
Frances E. W. Harper
Gloria Anzaldua
Shirin Ebadi
Ingrid Washinawatok
Ana Mendieta
Marija Gimbutas
Helen Keller
Mercedes Amaiana
Fusae Ichikawa
Lola Rodriguez de Tio
Florence Kelly
Victoria Mxenge
Nawal El-Saadawi
Ada Lovelace
Eileen Gray
Pat Hearn
Elizabeth Peratrovich
Minerva Mirabal
Sappho
Sylvia Beach
Marilyn Monroe
Nancy Spero
Minerva Bernardino
Ginetta Sagan
Lee Bul
Margaret Atwood
Lee Lozano
Charlotte Moorman
Jane Jacobs
Joan Mitchell




On Mar 6, 2011, at 3:06 PM, Ana Valdés wrote:

> Dear Christina, allow me to dissent a little bit :)
> At the Intifada the women had a very crucial role, I met Leila  
> Khaled some years ago in Amman and her tale of her hitchjacking of  
> two planes in the Eighties: is really atonishing.
> And I come myself from a generation of women engaged in gerilla  
> warfare in South America. I spent four years as political prisoner  
> in Uruguay for that.
> I think it's a kind of media issue, we "common women" don't fit in  
> the hero's stereotyps.
> Cheers
> Ana