Monthly Spotlight: Women's History

Andrée de Jongh

Already having years of experience as a World War 2 nurse with the Belgium Red Cross, at just 24 years old, Andrée de Jongh had walked into the British Consulate in Bilbao, Spain. In tow, she brought them a British soldier that she had smuggled all the way from Brussels, Belgium. This was the first of many journeys she would take while smuggling more people out of the battlefield that was her home country, thus creating the first Comet Line and the beginning of a new resistance group The Com'ete. With her strong personality and extraordinary courage and tenacity, Andrée de Jongh was given the nickname of 'Little Cyclone'. In addition to helping thousands escape Belgium, Andrée de Jongh got captured and tortured along with her fellow resistance members and still didn't divulge any information. -- Little Cyclone: The Girl Who Started the Comet Line

Martha Gellhorn

Martha Gellhorn was a journalist and author, friend of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and former third wife of Ernest Hemingway. She often did a lot of her most famous journalistic reporting on wars such as the Spanish Civil War, World War Two, and the Vietnam War. Alas, Martha Gellhorn didn't stop there, she also reported on major events like the Great Depression while working as a field investigator for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). Amongst all of this, she also wrote books based off her experiences throughout her travels and in turn has had many books written about her based on her own interviews and written letters.

Hannie Schaft, Freddie and Truus Oversteegen

These three young women had banded together in the Netherland town in World War Two to put a stop to some of the Nazis that were coming around. Using their young, innocent looks to lure unsuspecting Nazi soldiers and traitors to their deaths. That's not all these young women had accomplished. To add to their repertoire, they sheltered fleeing Jews, political dissidents, and Dutch resisters; they sabotaged bridges, railways, and set military facilities ablaze while transporting weapons; and went in disguises to hold lead children from probable internment in concentration camps to safehouses.-- Three Ordinary Girls: The Remarkable Story of Three Dutch Teenagers Who Became Spies, Saboteurs, Nazi Assassins= and WW|| Heroes

Mary McLeod Bethune

The daughter of former slaves, Mary Jane McLeod Bethune became one of the most important black educators, civil and women’s rights leaders, and government officials of the twentieth century. The college she founded set educational standards for today’s black colleges, and her role as an advisor to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave African Americans an advocate in government.--National Women's History Museum

Bethune’s lifework began in Daytona Beach when she saw other young black women in need of all varieties of education. Her ambition to provide a place for their schooling took the form of grasping at any possibilities. By 1925, Bethune School merged with the Cookman School for boys to become Bethune-Cookman College. Because Southern policies of segregation at the time extended to the care of hospital patients, Bethune was led to erect a hospital near the college in 1911 to provide better treatment for the black community. Bethune then became more active in social organizations devoted to protest and social reform. She served on the executive board of the Urban League as well as on committees resisting the discriminatory policies of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA). She was also active in the formation of the National Association of Wage Earners, an organization dedicated to informing women of their rights as workers. Founding the National Association of Negro Women in 1935 and working with the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, Bethune directed the Negro branch of the National Youth Administration. She was also the founder and president of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs. She was a special assistant to the secretary of war during World War II and served on the Committee for National Defense under President Harry S. Truman. She also served as a consultant to the conference that drafted the United Nations charter.--Mary McLeod Bethune

Yosano Akiko

Pen name Yosano Akiko, but born Ho Sho, was a Japanese poet whose new style caused a sensation in Japanese literacy. Research has produced a comprehensive biography that follows successive stages in Akiko's life: the unloved and unappreciated child whose only escape is in literature and reading; the young woman who has, by her practical competence, won the grudging respect of her family as the mainstay of the family sweet-making business; and finally, a woman self-confident and independent enough to be able to defy and resist the social conventions of the time in order find her own voice, both in a personal sense as Tekkan's wife, and in a poetic sense as an active and valued participant in literary circles.

As a result of a five-month stay in Paris, Yosano Akiko wrote about the physical and cultural differences she perceived between French and English people (especially women) and Japanese women. She saw Western women as taking a much more active part in life than Asian women, as evidenced by their struggle for equal rights, which Yosano herself advocated in her writings. Today her writing is still highly regarded in both Japan and the rest of the world.

Hedy Lamarr

In 1933, at age nineteen, she married Fritz Mandl in Vienna. He was a wealthy munitions manufacturer. Two years later she left him because she found his pro-Adolf Hitler leanings frightening and because she disliked his controlling temperament. She escaped by drugging her maid’s coffee, then driving the maid’s car to the railroad station and boarding a train for Paris. From Paris, she moved to London. That first marriage would lead to five more, all ending in divorce, and the longest lasting but seven years. Lamarr had numerous affairs over the years, including a few brief encounters with women. Even so, she operated on her own strict moral code, which forbade her to enter a sexual liaison for the purpose of advancing her career, because, she believed, that would be prostitution. Her openness about her sexuality led some to say she was ahead of her time. 

Hedy had started her career as an actress in Austria at the age of nineteen as well. After being misled into doing a nude scene, and her brush with a risky marriage, Hedy had signed a contract with Louis B. Mayer from MGM studios in Hollywood. Once she started in a few roles, she wanted a more creative approach and was able to get out of her contract and make a couple of films.

Hedy Lamarr didn't stop there, One thing that always bothered Lamarr was the conventional wisdom that a woman could not be both beautiful and intelligent. She was quoted as saying, “Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.” Her superior intellect enabled her to, with George Antheil, invent a means of scrambling radio signals that were used in World War II. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Lamarr became heavily involved in the war effort with volunteer work in the United Service Organization (USO) clubs and selling war bonds. Though the technology used in her invention is still widely utilized, she and Antheil never profited from their efforts because their patents expired. When The Sound of Music was filmed in 1965, the mansion that served as the Von Trapp family home was owned by Lamarr. Established after Lamarr’s death of natural causes at eighty-five, the Hedy Lamarr Foundation was created to provide educational and inspirational information to promote self-discovery and social accountability. --Hedy Lamarr

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

In the US women of color elected representatives have also generated attention in successful performances of speaking truth to power. In February 2019, clips from televised committee proceedings were widely circulated online of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez questioning unethical but legal practices that are available to legislators and elected officials, particularly the relationship between legislators and industry in campaign financing, and the extent to which the same ethical safeguards apply to the president of the United States. --The Oxford Handbook of Politics and Performance

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has also co-authored a new Green New Deal policy proposal aimed at uniting the goals of environmental protection, specifically climate change policy, with labor protections and other progressive social policy goals. The proposal is embodied in identical congressional resolutions introduced by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Senator Ed Markey.--Environmental Law

Karine Jean-Pierre

Born in Martinique, the author was raised by working-class Haitian immigrant parents in New York. Realizing that she wasn't going to fulfill her parents' dream that she become a doctor, she was drawn to politics after getting a master's degree in public administration from Columbia University. She documents some of the pressures of entering the political scene as a young, black, immigrant, lesbian woman. However, she doesn't dwell on these pressures, mentioning only in passing her experience of childhood sexual abuse and a suicide attempt. Instead, she focuses on the lessons of hard work and determination that she learned from her family.--Kirkus Reviews

President Joe Biden has chosen Karine Jean-Pierre to be White House press secretary, succeeding Jen Psaki and becoming the first Black and openly gay person to serve as the public face of a U.S. administration. Jean-Pierre has served as deputy press secretary since the beginning of Biden's term. She worked on his 2020 presidential campaign, in President Barack Obama's White House, and was chief public affairs officer for MoveOn.org, a progressive advocacy group.-- World News Digest

Xiye Bastida

Xiye Bastida is a 20-year-old climate activist from the Otom-Toltec community in central Mexico, a leading organizer with the (Fridays for Future movement in New York City, a co-founder of the Re-Earth Initiative, and a champion of Indigenous and immigrant engagement in climate activism.--Newstex LLC

She is one of many young people demanding climate justice by protesting and organizing strikes to stop investment in fossil fuel spending and infrastructure and, instead, promote investment in climate education, renewable energy, and meeting the 1.5 °C temperature target contained in the Paris Agreement.-- 2021 Nobel Prize Summit

Dr. Shannon Melissa Chan

Since completing her general surgery fellowship at the Prince of Wales Hospital, Dr Chan has been closely working with Doctors Without Borders to provide surgical care globally. When asked about the reasons behind her joining MSF missions, Dr Chan expressed that it has always been a pursuit for her to serve the less fortunate, and she felt that she could do more on top of her usual duties of surgery, endoscopies, and clinics. It was also to remind herself to reconnect with her passion to help patients and save more lives. --Hong Kong Medical Journal

Dr. Chan continues her work as an Assistant Professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. There she is focusing on her research in Gastrointestinal and Metabolic Surgery, specifically in the laparoscopic and robotic approach.--Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Mandela Schumacher-Hodge Dixon

Mandela first started a job as a portfolio services director, she started unofficially studying the funding gap...In 2017, she launched Founder Gym, offering six-week courses that teach underrepresented founders to raise money and scale...Founder Gym will hit $1 million in revenue this year and has trained 600 entrepreneurs to date—70 percent Black—who have collectively raised more than $57 million. --Entrepreneur

In 2017, 34 senior female investors, including Mandela Schumacher-Hodge Dixon, had the vision to make tech more accessible, equitable, and diverse. They quickly sparked a grassroots movement that became a startup non-profit organization that includes entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and allies across the country.-- All Rise Information Page

Mandela continues to help those who are female and nonbinary investors, founders, and operators in tech through mentoring, speaking at summits, and continuing to grow her non-profit All Rise.